The Eye of Gods
by dnrl
Summary: At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who Prop's mother is, or who Sudi's father is, or whether or not Ada is a mortal. At the end of the day, all that matters is that they're his friends, and they're on a quest, and they'll go home together. OC story.
1. Chapter 1

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**The Eye of Gods**

_by: dnrl

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Chapter One: Come Rain or Come Shine

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The day my dad died, it was sunny.

Usually, in the movies and the books and whatever else there is, it always rains when somebody dies. Like the whole sky is mourning for the loss of that one life. But when my dad died, there wasn't a cloud in the whole blue sky. I guess it makes sense; I mean, statistically, about three hundred thousand people die every day around the world. If it rained whenever someone died, there would be no more land. But it seemed odd to me, to climb out of the twisted steel of our wrecked car and to see my dad's dead body illuminated by the summer noontime sun.

It gave the whole event a sense of…unreality. Nothing seemed real, nothing really set in. The whole day is a vague, blurry memory – helping hands pulling me aside and gentle nurses looking me over in the back of an ambulance; a policeman asking me if my dad had been drinking; horrified and sympathetic faces of random people on the sidewalk who had stopped around the crash scene. My aunt drove across the state to come and get me. She picked me up in her purple and blue Beetle, and brought me to her hotel room. It turned out later that my dad had had a major seizure and lost control of the car. He hadn't had any control, hadn't really been conscious when he died. But none of that mattered to me, because my head was still stuck on the picture of my dad's too-pale, washed-out-looking corpse in the sun on the sidewalk on a Saturday afternoon in August.

My aunt flew me back to New York with her, after we packed up the apartment my dad and I had shared. We lived in an okay part of town, still living off of his severance package from his old job at the accounting firm downtown. He had gotten laid off five months ago, and then been diagnosed with skin cancer. Then, the landlord kicked us out of our old apartment. We managed to get this one, somehow, but things hadn't been looking good. No one was hiring, and the money was going fast. My dad, though, never let anything get him down. I couldn't really remember him without a smile. Sometimes it would sad, but when he saw me looking it would brighten. He would ruffle my hair and give me a one-armed dad hug, and somehow that made _everything_ okay.

Packing up the apartment was almost more surreal than the day of the accident. I had moved before, and recently, so the boxes and stuff weren't new to me. Instead, it was the fact that instead of folding my dad's shirts and putting them into boxes with mine, we were almost reverently putting them into big black trash bags and putting them in the hall outside the apartment. My aunt broke down a couple of times and had to leave for a while, but I didn't. I couldn't, because even though it had been three days, it hadn't really _hit_ me that he wasn't coming back.

All in all, my stuff took up two tagged suitcases, a duffel bag, and a small carry-on. We spent two days in the apartment, deciding what to keep and what to sell. My dad and my aunt didn't have any other family, both of their parents dead when I was four. I didn't know who my mom was, or if I had any family on that side, and whenever I brought her up, my aunt got this tight look around her eyes. So I didn't mention it, because she was the only real family I had left.

My dad always talked about my mom, whenever I mentioned her, and sometimes when I didn't. At night, when I was younger, he'd tell me stories about a summer house in California, on the beach, where they would have coffee and do the crossword and talk about kids like me. He told me that she loved me with all her heart, but that she _had_ to leave, that she didn't have any choice. The way he said it made it sound like she was dead, sort of, but at the same time _not_. He had really, really loved her, and he still did – well. Not anymore. He used to tell me, at random times, how much I looked like her, or that I smiled like she did, or that I had her eyes or her ears or whatever. But he never told me her name, and so sometimes when my ADHD acted up because school was boring, I would make up names for her; exotic names, beautiful names, sometimes plain names, it didn't matter. None of them _fit_, somehow.

My aunt had been visiting in a city a couple of miles away from Seattle, where my dad and I lived. But _she_ lived in New York City – and so away she and I went, leaving behind my dad in his casket in the ground, and my apartment, clean and sterile and empty, and a part of my childhood that I would never get back. I was fourteen years old.

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"Pros – Prospero? Am I saying that right?"

I looked up at the plump, kindly-looking secretary who was peering down at me over her glasses, frowning. "Yes, m'am," I said, smiling "But I go by Prop." The expression felt odd, and empty, stretching muscles in my face that I hadn't used since my dad had – well.

"So you _are_ Prospero Bianchi?" she asked, surveying the form on the clipboard in front of her. "Transferring in from Seattle, am I right?"

"Yes, m'am," I confirmed. I shifted in my seat, my ADHD acting up in response to my nervousness. Nerves and attention disorders were never good combinations. Add in my dyslexia, and any time I caught sight of a written word my head demanded that I try to puzzle it out, look away from it, and find something else to do all at the same time.

She made a vague noise, read some more, and then smiled at me. "Principal Edwards will be able to see you in a few minutes. Would you like a glass of water, dear? You look nervous, and a good cool drink will always calm the nerves."

My throat tensing up, I nodded. I _hated_ meeting new people, especially authority figures. It's not that I don't have a healthy respect for them or for the rules, but they look at my record sheet and then at the trail of bad luck that follows me like a black cloud and they make the judgment that I'm another kid who has authority issues. My shyness didn't help to disperse the issue, either, considering that I found it hard to talk to people when they were angry at me. My last principal considered my silence a form of back talk, and it took my dad explaining that I was painfully shy to get him to lighten my two-week ISS.

The secretary came bustling around the desk with a paper cup full of chilly water. "Here you go, sweetheart. Drink up. It'll do you some good."

I managed to swallow a few tiny sips. "Thank you," I choked out. I saw her make a sympathetic face, and she put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"Mr. Edwards is a very nice man, Prospero - Prop," she told me gently with a smile. "I'm sure that you'll be right at ease after a few minutes. He doesn't bite."

I nodded and took a larger gulp of water.

"Prospero? Prospero Bianchi?" A man stepped out of an office in the back of the room and looked around. His gaze fixed on me and he smiled.

I didn't like him much. His eyes were close-set in a bloated face, and his smile left me feeling…greasy. This was a guy like the dad in _Matilda_, a book my dad used to read to me when I was younger. The thought of my dad filled me with courage – he wasn't here to tell everyone about my shyness. I had to speak for myself.

It didn't make it any easier.

"I'm Prospero," I said, my voice raspy. I stood up and the secretary took the cup from me. She led me around the desk, and I shook hands with the principal. "Nice to meet you, sir."

"And a pleasure to meet you, young man," he replied, shaking my hand vigorously. He was trying to be hearty and manly, and really overdoing it. "Come on into my office, and we'll have a go-over about your schedule and such, okay?"

I nodded and followed him into his office, wiping my clammy palms on my jeans. I took a seat in one of the hard, uncomfortable, orange visitor chairs and waited while he situated himself behind his desk, shuffling papers in an attempt to look important. I reigned in my initial dislike and forced it away. Who was I to judge people? My dad always said that there was good in everyone, if you looked hard enough. I had to look, because I hadn't really done so yet.

"Prospero Bianchi," he finally said, reading off of a sheet of paper. "Well, Prospero, it says here that you've been expelled from four of your previous schools." He looked at me with cool, appraising eyes. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

"Well, sir," I managed, "I try as best as I can to improve on – on what I've done wrong before, and to – to make it so that I avoid mis – mistakes, sir."

He nodded and made little noises in the back of his throat. "So I see. You're also recorded as having had a number of in-school suspensions, along with a large mountain of demerits. Anything to say about _those_?"

"If – if you'll look, sir, a lot of those are minor infractions," I said, fighting to keep my nerves under control. I hated being analyzed by my record. I had my explanations, but whenever I voiced them they always sounded like excuses. "Tardies, and checking into school without my ID, and gum, and – "

"So," he broke in, "things that you just forgot about."

I nodded.

"Well, we need to work on improving your memory, Mr. Bianchi. Now, you seem to be an alright student, given your ADHD and dyslexia. We have, of course, special classes and tutoring labs for children with disabilities such as yourself, but we've placed you in regular pre-algebra, since you show an aptitude for numbers. Is that all right with you?" he asked. He was speaking down to me, I could tell, but I forced my judgment away again.

"Yes, sir," I replied, swallowing nervously.

He looked back down at the paper and frowned. "According to this, your aunt is your legal guardian. Are your mother and father divorced, or…?"

"My father d-died recently," I said, my throat suddenly constricting on the word "died." I swallowed hard once or twice, my eyes on the carpet, before I continued. "My mother is…well, sir, I never knew her. I think that she's dead as well."

I heard a brief exhalation, and a sharp crinkling of plastic. "Here, son." I looked up to find a cheap cherry-red lollipop a few inches before my nose. I took it and stuck it in my mouth just to have something to do. Edwards was clearly conflicted, not knowing whether to treat me the same as he had before or to show sympathy for the probable orphan boy. In the end, he awkwardly rose and gestured me up and out of the office.

"I wish you the best of luck here at Rosewood, Mr. Bianchi," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. "You're a bright young boy, and I hope that I won't see you in my office in the immediate future."

"No shur," I slurred around the sucked. "Thank you."

"You're quite welcome. Mrs. Bridget has your schedule," here he gestured to the kindly secretary, who waved a sheet of paper, "and school commences on Wednesday. We'll see you then, I suppose?"

"Yesh, shur," I said, nodding. He smiled again, less greasy than before, trying his hardest to be friendly.

"Have a good day," he said as he vanished into his office, closing the door behind himself.

"See?" chirped Mrs. Bridget, as I took my schedule. "Not so bad at all!"

I smiled as best I could. "No, m'am." I tore the sucker head away from the stick, crunched it, and swallowed. "Do you have a trash can?"

"Right here, I'll take it." She tossed it into a little white can beneath her desk, knocking over a picture frame. "Oh!"

I caught it before it hit the floor and righted it on her desk. Three beaming children's face smiled up at me, a little boy and two older girls, a bit older than I was. "Are those your children?"

"My grandbabies," she said proudly, glowing. "Alexis, Maddie, and Nathan. My oldest daughter's children."

"They're…nice," I offered, unsure of how to compliment them. She seemed happy enough.

"Yes, they are. They go here as well, I'll see if Alex or Maddie can show you the ropes. They love helping out new students."

"Thank you very much," I replied, taken aback by the kind offer. "That'd be…that'd be great."

"Yes, well – oh, here's one of your teachers now!" she broke off, beaming at someone behind me. I turned around and was met by a thin, bony teacher with a hawkish nose and icy cold blue eyes. She was staring at me with a freakish intensity. "Prospero, this is Ms. Waldron. Anita, this is Prospero Bianchi, a new student here this year. He'll be in your History class, I believe."

"Quite," agreed Ms. Waldron. Something about her voice sounded…off. I had to suppress a shiver. "Laura, there seems to be something wrong with the coffee machine in the teacher's lounge. I don't suppose you would know how to fix it?"

Mrs. Bridget made a fussing sound and bustled away. "It's always acting up. I'll be right back, Prospero, and I'll get you a map," she called back to me with a smile. I smiled in return, trying not to show the unease I felt in Ms. Waldron's presence. She hadn't stopped staring at me, even when she was speaking to Mrs. Bridget.

"Um, hi," I offered, shifting nervously. Something about this woman wasn't right. She licked her lips suddenly, and I noticed in the back of my mind that they were larger than they had been a second ago. That couldn't be right. But there it was again – they were _growing_. And maybe there was something wrong with the lights, because her skin was yellowing, aging, and she was shrinking into herself, her back curving over.

"Half-blood," she hissed, and it sounded like fingernails on paper. "Oh, it has been so long. Even with your youth, you will be _feast_. I am so _hungry_, half-blood."

I choked out a nervous laugh, backing away, hands raised. "No, you must have me confused with someone else. Or is this like an orientation? Ha, ha, I get it. Cool joke."

She made an odd hacking noise, and it took me a moment to realize that she was laughing. "A joke? Oh, indeed, a sweet and cruel joke on you, half-blood."

"Half-blood?" I asked, my back hitting a stack of boxes full of paper. I swallowed hard. "No, I'm whole-blood. Not anemic or anything, even," I rasped, my voice reaching a pitch near hysteria. What was this? Where was Mrs. Bridget, or Mr. Edwards? _Someone_?

As if I had voiced my thoughts out loud, Ms. Waldron let loose another hacking laugh. "That fool human in his office will hear nothing, and by the time the old woman totters back in here it will be as though you never existed. She won't even remember you. No one will. And won't that be wonderful?" She licked her too-large lips excitedly, her tongue distinctly pointed, her eyes too big for her face, her body a skeletal frame from which her clothes hung. "I will eat you, half-blood, and your memories and the memories of you from all you have ever known, and it will be delicious." Her eyes hardened. "I tire of these games, _boy. _Are you ready to _die_?"

And I knew, suddenly, that _no_, I wasn't ready to die, and if I had to, it wouldn't be because someone _ate_ me. Without thinking, I grabbed the first hard thing my hand came into contact with and hurled it straight and the teacher's – the _monster's_ – face. I expected her to duck, or lunge away, but she just opened her mouth wide, wider than anyone's should be able to open, and swallowed the large bronze paper weight. She smacked her lips. "Tasty, but not _satisfying_. Not _filling_ as you will be."

She stalked closer and closer, her eyes gleaming and the shadows in her cheeks dark in the fluorescent lights from overhead. This was it. I was going to die. I was going to be eaten by my history teacher in the corner of a school office, and no one would even remember that I had _existed_. I wouldn't even get a funeral like my dad's. My dad. My dad…maybe I would see him again. Maybe he would remember me. Could this thing eat the dead's memories too?

A sudden crash broke into the room, and the monster whirled around to focus on the terrified Mrs. Bridget, who stood in the doorway in front of a shattered cup of coffee on the floor. She was pale and slumping against the door, staring aghast at Ms. Waldron's creature form.

"Anita," she gasped, "Anita, what are you doing with that gun? Put the gun down, Anita!"

I blinked at her, confused. What gun? There wasn't a gun.

"Foolish human wench," hissed the Waldron monster. She lunged out with an inhuman speed, straight towards Mrs. Bridget, who stood paralyzed in the doorway. Her jaws expanded again and snapped around Mrs. Bridget's head, then shoulders, and then downward, until she was gone. It happened faster than I could blink.

The picture of the three beaming kids fell to the floor, the glass shattering.

"Idiot mortal," tsked the creature, turning serpentine eyes back towards me. "She very nearly spoiled my appetite. But never fear, half-blood – there is still room for you."

"She didn't even _do_ anything," I protested, my knees shaking. "She had kids, _grandkids_."

"Yes," replied the thing. "And now she doesn't. Because she is no more."

"She's dead! You killed her!" My fury was rising above my fear now, a red haze over my vision.

"Fool," laughed the monster. "She isn't dead. She's _gone_. I _ate_ her. She is no more." Slowly, the creature grew and grew, towering until in filled the room. "But I still want food. I still want _you_. I am starving, half-blood. I am hungry. I am _Hunger_. Come to me, then, child!"

She lunged for me, and…well, time didn't slow down, exactly. It was more like _I_ was speeding up, like I was as fast as the monster. I dodged left, and then right, her teeth snapping where my head had been seconds ago. My mind was racing, like my ADHD was on steroids, half-formed plans running through me head. I stood still, straight up, and as she lunged I dropped down. Her head was buried in the cardboard boxes. I seized my momentary advantage, shoved her aside, and ran for the door.

I heard her shriek behind me, and a few boxes hit the walls. Still, I ran, not looking back as I heard her slam into the lockers as we streaked down the halls. I swung down the stairwell, skipping three stairs in between. I tried to ignore the burning in my lungs and the throbbing in my chest. I felt like I was just a blur of motion. Not pausing, I hit the landing swung around a doorframe and slammed the door shut behind me. It was solid wood, tough. I was sure that she could make it through in about three seconds.

I locked it anyway. Just on principle.

I glanced around. I was in the girl's bathroom in the basement of the school building. A wall of sinks was to my left, a set of five cubicles to my right. Above sink were mirrors, and above the mirrors – a long, thin window. _Freedom_.

I clambered onto the porcelain sink, which trembled under my weight. Praying under my breath, my fingers fumbled along the sill for the latch. Which was, of course, rusted and unused for what was probably the fifty years since it was installed. Cursing, I yanked at it with both hands, willing it to give.

I heard a _thunk_ against the door, and then the scraping of teeth against wood. I pulled harder, more frantically, pure panic driving my actions, adrenaline singing through my system. The door splintered and caved inward at the exact moment that the latch came undone – and at the same time that the sink under my feet decided that it had had enough of this, thank you. Porcelain and rusted pipe creaked, groaned, and shattered, leaving my sprawled across the bathroom tile. Fresh air brushed my face, the window open, and I knew that there was no way I could get through without the monster getting to me first. She knew it too, and she was laughing. She didn't even look human anymore; her clothes were gone, and she was a dry, shriveled husk with eyes and a mouth too big for her face.

She threw her head back in a harsh, rasping laugh, and I seized my chance. I snatched up a piece of pipe with porcelain attached to the end and swung it hard at her exposed neck. Some part of me was yelling that I shouldn't do it, I couldn't take a life, but a bigger part – the _right_ part – was showing me Mrs. Bridget over and over and over, and she didn't _deserve_ to die. Her killer did.

The monster let loose a wail as the jagged glass cut into its neck. There was no blood that came from the jagged hole, but rather a fine trickle of dust. I didn't lose any time, didn't let myself think – I swung again and again, for Mrs. Bridget and for myself and for my _dad_, because I _knew_ that even if dying meant I'd see him again, he wouldn't want me to die so soon. Under my hands, slowly, the monster writhed and turned to dust, leaving behind a large pointed tooth and nothing else.

I sat there for a long time, panting and sweaty in the girl's bathroom. Slowly, slowly, I got up and clambered out of the window, because I wasn't going back into that school building ever again. I found my aunt's car; she wasn't in it, but I wasn't surprised. She was probably in the school, looking for me. Let her look. I wasn't going in to find her.

She came back about ten minutes later and shook my frantically. "Prospero Vittorio Bianchi! Where were you?! Do you have _any_ idea how scared I was?!"

I bit my lip. "Aunt Bella," I murmured, looking her dead in the eye. "What's a half-blood?"

She froze where she was, her breath catching in her chest for a minute. She closed her eyes and slumped against the car with me, letting out a long, tired sigh. "Let me tell you about your mom," she said at last.

Nothing would ever be the same.

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A/N

Okay, okay, I jumped on the bandwagon. But it's my mind's fault, damn it! ;-;

Yes, I know that the plot is overused. Yes, I know the writing could use some serious improvement. Yes, I know it's sort of predictable, or Prop is a Gary Stu, or _whatever_. :( But the thing is, I'm having _so much fun_ writing this. Not even funny. This is probably the first fic on here that I'm really, really enjoying myself in writing. Yes, okay, I have fun with my other fics, and it's great to write them. But this is _different_, and I _love_ it. I'm excited to be able to incorporate Greek and Egyptian mythology together, and to see how my new babies (characters, guys) interact with one another and with the story. So, yes, it's another OC PJO story - but it's _mine_, and it makes me smile. :)

Next chapter should be up soon. Like, within the week, I think. Seriously, guys. Whoa.


	2. Chapter 2

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**The Eye of Gods**

_by: dnrl

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Chapter Two: I'll Believe In Anything

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"So…are you ready to do this?"

I shot my aunt a Look that stated, quite clearly, that _no_, I was _not_ ready to do this, nor was I ready to get out of the car, nor was I ready to believe in the _Greek gods_. Seriously.

"Okay, then, that's a resounding _no_. What's the problem?" she asked, sipping a Slurpee and looking out the windshield at the hill that rose before the car.

"What's the – Aunt Bella!" I complained, hating how whiny I sounded. I took the deepest breath my lungs would let me and let it go. "It's too fast. It's changing too fast, and I can't keep up. I'm losing ground, I really am, and I don't know what to do."

She sighed, setting her drink down and running her hand along my arm. "I know that. I _know_ that you're fourteen, and you've just lost the one person who meant the world to you, and that you don't really believe anything that I'm telling you. You're angry because I've kept this from you for so long – because your _dad _didn't tell you. I get that. But facts are facts, _ometto_." She paused and bit her lip. "It's a hard truth about the world: it doesn't stop spinning to let you catch up. So this truth leaves you with two choices. The first choice is to stop running. Let the world spin you around, lose who you are, your sense of purpose. It's the easy choice, and I won't blame you if you choose it, I really won't. _But_. Don't ever forget, even in the moments when your world is darkest, that there _is another choice_. Your second choice is this: you speed up."

She looked over at me, and there were tears in her eyes. "I helped your papa raise you, Prop. I was there when you took your first steps, said your first word, grew your first tooth. Your papa didn't know what the hell he was doing, and he called me, and he asked me to help, and I did. But you _know_ your papa, better than anyone else. What do you think he would've done if I hadn't helped?"

I huffed a quiet laugh. "He would've gone to the self-help section of the library, like he did when he broke the dishwasher."

"_Exactly._ Your papa knew that there were two choices, always, in every situation. He would never choose the first. Never."

I felt my smile trembling as my eyes began to sting. "D'you know," I said, fighting to keep my voice steady, "he never could fix the dishwasher? He bought so many books, asked so many people's advice, and he could never do it on his own."

"But he didn't give up, did he?"

"He called a repairman," I choked. "That counts as giving up."

She rolled her eyes. "_No_, it _doesn't_. He called a repairman, okay, so what? He learned from his mistake that you don't put that kind of soap in the dishwasher, and then he learned how to fix it. Did he do it again? No, he didn't. And he didn't let it keep him down. Ever. Your papa sped up. Every single time the world stated moving faster, so did he. He sprinted along as fast as he could, and he was _happy_."

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the burning trails on my face. Gently, Aunt Bella brushed them away. "Do you understand what I'm saying, _ometto_?""

I leaned back in my seat and clutched my hands into tight fists, feeling the nails digging into my palms. I just let myself _feel_ for a minute – the light throb from my hands, the smell of a cherry Slurpee and used but clean car, and the fading scent of a coffee air freshener. The feel of cloth against my skin, of the ridges on the seat cover pressing against my t-shirt and back, and the softness of the leather under my hand as it rested on the inside of the door. I pushed away everything that hurt, everything that told me to shut up, lie down, and just stop trying so hard.

"Yeah," I said at last. "Yeah, I understand."

"Then get out of the damn car, I have an appointment in the city in two hours," she teased, prodding me in the side. I managed a weak smile and opened the door, stepping out onto the grass at the foot of the hill.

"You sure that this is the place?" I asked, shifting from foot to foot nervously. "I don't see anything camp-like."

"I'm sure," she replied, throwing me my duffel bag from the trunk. I missed it, and it landed in the dust of the road. "Nice catch," she said, and I could _hear_ her eyeroll.

"You suck at throwing," I told her.

"True."

She came and stood next to me. We looked up at the tree on top of the hill for a few minutes, and silence reigned around us. She sighed. "Well, Prop, I'm off. Write me or call or do that weird floaty-rainbow-message thing that that Mr. Chiron person told me about, okay?"

"Sure," I agreed, and we both knew that I wouldn't do either until I was ready to go back to her apartment. She hugged me good-bye, giving me a little squeeze.

"I'll pray for you every day," she whispered in my ear. "Your papa'll be watching you, Prospero."

I nodded brusquely, and she slid across the hood and slipped into the driver's seat. She shot me the Vulcan hand sign. "Live long and prosper, short stuff," was the last thing she said to me before she sped away. I turned back to the hill, alone and more intimidated than I could remember feeling in…ever.

"Might as well just…get it over with," I told myself, attempting to fight away the nervousness that was rising like bile in my throat. "It's not that bad. It won't be that bad. It'll be like…summer camp."

_You hated summer camp_, my mind reminded me.

I told myself to shut up, resolutely shouldered my duffel bag, and made my way steadily up the hill towards the pine tree.  


* * *

I really wasn't too fond of summer camps.

"Oh gods. Kid, are you okay?"

I was flat on my back, painful tingles running up and down my spine. I observed, with a somewhat clinical detachment, that they were probably caused by the smashing of my tailbone into the ground a few seconds earlier. My head was spinning – most likely because it was just smacked by a volleyball.

"Urgh," I mumbled, squinting as a person above me moved and the sun flashed in my eye. "Head hurts."

"Way to go, Jeff," hissed another one of the heads that hovered concernedly above me. "Hurt the new kid."

"It wasn't me!" defended the head across from the accuser. "I swear, I've never hit a ball that foul before. It's like he's jinxed or something."

A voice from outside the circle of hover-ers called out, "Guys, move, Chiron's here!"

They shuffled away, and then a steady, strong hand was pulling him up. "Easy there, easy. Come on up."

I staggered up to my feet, wincing as a pain lanced through my head. "Ow," I moaned, raising my free hand to touch the back of my head. It came back red with blood. "What…?"

"Rock," remarked the voice that belonged to the arm that had helped me up. I turned and looked up at – at a man-horse. A _centaur_. I didn't know much, but I knew what centaurs were. Up until about two seconds ago, I'd also been fairly sure that they weren't _real_. "You must've hit your head on it. It's not severe – it just needs to be cleansed and bandaged properly. Come with me, to the Big House."

"My – my bag," I managed to get out. I was disoriented, confused, staring a mythical creature in the face, and I was _lost_. I wanted my stuff. _My stuff_, at least, would remain _my stuff_. It was stuffed into my hand by an apologetic, rather beefy boy wearing an orange t-shirt – Jeff, I presumed, from his guilty expression.

"Come now," said the centaur, tugging me away.

I half-walked, half-stumbled in the wake of the trotting centaur, and found myself being led onto a porch and then inside a large, aging house. He guided me to a chair and placed my bag on the table. "Just sit for a moment," he said, hand on my shoulder. "I need to go get gauze and disinfectant."

He clip-clopped into another room, leaving me alone. Well, sort of.

Across the table from me, a debauched, pudgy man with a bulbous red nose, bloodshot eyes, and a decidedly bored look on his face stared at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

"You're a new brat," he said decisively after a few minutes of silence. "I haven't seen your sniveling face around here before."

"Um, yes si-sir," I forced out, swallowing reflexively.

"And who are you spawned from?"

My eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"Your parents, your maternal and paternal units, the two people who decided to do the dirty horizontal tango."

I fought down a blush. I was a _boy_, I wasn't supposed to blush especially not at things like mentioning sex. _Bad Prospero_. "Um, my dad is – was Nicollo Bianchi. My mom is, uh, apparently a goddess."

The corpulent man rolled his eyes. "No, really?" He sighed, snapped his fingers, and a Diet Coke materialized in his hands. I tried not to stare. "Do you know which _one_, Meatball?"

_Meatball..?_

He rolled his eyes again. Apparently it was a habit. "You're Italian, like spaghetti. Meatball."

_Oh._ "Um, my dad told my aunt that my mom was Nike."

That got a raised eyebrow. He took a sip of his Diet Coke. "Goddess of victory. God, bet you're just ace at sports, aren't you?"

"Um, no, not really," I said with a nervous laugh. "I'm horrible at sports."

This merited two raised eyebrows. "Well, then. What sort of things _do_ you win?"

"Nothing," I replied. "I don't think I've ever won anything in my life."

He stared blankly at me for a minute. "Are you _sure_ your aunt said Nike?"

I nodded, one hand clenching the fabric of my duffel bag, eyes downcast. "Positive."

He eyed me up and down before taking another sip of his Coke. "Good for you, kiddo. Apparently your mom doesn't love you. So sad."

"Mr. D," reprimanded the centaur, emerging through the doorway. He focused on me. "I'm going to make the assumption that you're Prospero Bianchi?"

"Yes, sir," I said, remembering to breathe deep. "I prefer Prop."

"Prop it is," he replied easily, smiling as he set a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a mess of bandages on the table. "My name is Chiron, and that is Mr. D. I see you two have already met."

"Yes, sir."

He flashed me a smile, gradually putting me more and more at ease. I felt my throat begin to un-tense, although Mr. D's presence still kept me a little bit on edge. He wasn't exactly sunshine and giggles. _Don't judge, Prop_, I reminded myself. He had a reason for being how he was. I shouldn't judge.

"Alright, I'm going to swab with the alcohol now, so it may sting a bit."

Sure enough, the alcohol bit into my skin. The tingling sanitizing feeling, along with the sterile scent, brought back warped memories of hospital rooms and stitches and sunny days in August. I blinked once, hard, and sent the images very, very far away.

"Ahem."

I tried to turn my head, but Chiron tugged at my hair so that I would stay still. "No moving," he warned me.

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"You're too polite," growled Mr. D. "What do you want, brother?"

"A vacation. I have a message to give to a Mr. …Prospero Bianchi. I'm assuming that you're him?" A man in a track suit stepped in front of my line of sight.

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Um, I bear greetings from Nike, your immortal mother, who so claims you, et cetera, et cetera. She doesn't actually _have_ a symbol, and Zeus has her caught up in planning some event right now so she couldn't come claim you in person, but as her son she loves you and expects great things. Best wishes for your future." He looked up from the glowing PDA he was orating from and smiled at me. "Got it?"

"Um," I said, blinking, "I guess."

"Hey," he said, taking in the stricken look on my face, "just because she _couldn't_ come in person doesn't mean she didn't want to, or that she doesn't love you. When Zeus wants something done, you get it _done_, and fast. He doesn't take well to lateness. She would've been here if she could. Cheer up."

"Okay, sir," I replied, biting my lip. Chiron smoothed on a bandage over the cut and stepped back.

"All wrapped up," he announced. "I'm just glad that I didn't have to cut any hair for this one."

"You have her hair – your mother's, I mean," the track-suited man explained. "Dark and wavy. Although I guess that applies to most of the pantheon, doesn't it? Dark hair."

"Your older, wiser sister is blonde," Chiron pointed out.

"Oh, and if I could get away with a dumb blonde joke," sighed Mr. D. "Kidding," he added, with a quick glace to the ceiling. "Only kidding, of course."

Chiron sighed, shook his head, and refocused his attention on me. "Very well, then, Prop, I'll call one of the other campers over to bring you to your cabin and show you the ropes, and you can just follow the schedule they give you. Alright?"

"Um…yes, sir." Satisfied, he trotted to the outside door and left.

He raised an eyebrow. "Well, someone's father raised him right."

"Thank you," I said, hoping it was a good thing. The man's smiles told me it was. He nodded to me.

"Pleasure meeting you, son of Nike," he said. "If you'd just look away for a moment…"

I did, with my eyes closed and head turned, and even then I could feel scorching heat on my face. A bright flash lit up the inside of my closed eyes, and my still-dizzy head was stunned again. A few seconds later, the light passed, and the man was gone.

"He was really a god," I told myself, staring at where he had been. "He was _really_…"

"Yes, he was, _really_." Mr. D gave me a look. "Get used to it, Priam."

"It's Prosper, sir. Prop."

"That's what I said, isn't it? Peter."

"I – no, it's not, it's…"

"Prop, right?"

I turned to the door, wary of moving too quickly, and focused in on the new speaker in the conversation. He was a tall kid with curly blonde hair and focused gray eyes. He wore the same neon orange t-shirt that the other campers wore. "I'm Aiden. Come on with me, I'll show you to your cabin."

I rose, steadying myself on the table and picking up my duffel. "Nice to meet you, Mr. D."

"Not likewise, Percival."

"No, it's – "

"Prop, c'mon." Aiden gestured for me to leave and I did as he suggested, lugging my bag over my shoulder. He closed the door behind me and we walked off the porch together. "Don't worry about Mr. D. He pretends that he can't remember anybody's name, no matter who they are or how long they've been here."

"The Coke thing – how does he do that?"

Aiden grinned. "He's a _god_."

"A god? Here?!"

"Yeah. He's being punished by the Big Guy in the Sky for chasing after a nymph. His sentence _was_ a hundred years, but after the Titan War is was shortened to fifty."

"Titan War? Big Guy?" I was jogging to keep up with him; he was about a head taller than I was, and his height was in his legs. "What are you talking about?"

"Big Guy is the Thunderer. We don't use names casually here – they're powerful. For cabins, and sons and daughters of, and stuff, it's okay. Otherwise..." I nodded as he went on. "The Titan War was a war fought by the gods and demigods against the Titans."

"The – the parents of the gods, right?"

Aiden nodded, noticed I was lagging behind, and slowed his steps. "Sorry about that. Anyway, so there was this big prophecy, and a son of Hermes named Luke went traitor and gave his body to the Titan Lord Kronos. So the Titan Lord rose into power and almost destroyed Olympus. But these heroes – well, all the campers, really, but specifically a daughter of Athena named Annabeth and a son of Poseidon named Percy – they stopped him. Luke wound up dying a hero, because he took control from Kronos and was able to kill himself."

The words chasing themselves around my head, I could only stammer out, "I – I thought you couldn't kill an immortal."

Aiden's face was grim. "You can't. So we all have to be on the watch for signs of his remanifesting, because he's still out there, and he'll probably use half-bloods to rise to power again. Here, we're at the cabins."

There were about thirty of them, some newly built and some older than the rest. They differed wildly in construction, size, and styles. Aiden walked me around, telling me which cabin belonged to which god and making sure I knew what the god or goddess controlled. "This first one is Zeus' cabin. For a while, it was only for ceremony, because he wasn't supposed to have kids."

"Why not?" I asked. From what I remembered, if there was one thing Zeus did well, it was having kids. Why stop? I shook my head. Was I really _believing_ all of this?

"Pact made by the Big Three – the three most powerful gods. Their children were to powerful, _plus_ the prophecy – the one from the war – said that a child of the Big Three would either save or destroy Olympus."

"There was a son of…Poseidon, right?"

"Good memory," he complimented. "Yeah. Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon. He still comes around sometimes. He's about forty now, but he's still the best we've ever seen with a sword. He married the daughter of Athena – Annabeth. They have like three kids or something, they stop by for summers when they can. Speaking of the sea god – this is _his_ cabin. There are four or five kids in there now; _don't_ mention Percy in front of them, please, especially Natalia. They think that being related to him makes them the coolest kids on the block." He rolled his eyes. "As if. There's Hera's cabin, always been empty, always will be…"

We went on down the line, passing the twelve major gods that I knew of and then going on towards the newer cabins. "This is the Hades cabin," he said as we passed an amazing black stone cabin. "Four kids in there. They seem sort of creepy at first, but once you get used to them they're pretty cool." From there, we passed a cabin for Hecate, Persephone, Dione, Erebus, Eris, Er_o_s, Hebe, and several others. We stopped in front of two cabins, both empty. One was darker, with tinted windows, dark bricks, and a set of scales over the door. "That's the cabin for Nemesis, goddess of balance. And _that_ one," he said, gesturing to the smaller, lighter cabin, "is yours. Cabin for Nike, goddess of victory."

It was made of birch wood, with a smooth, small porch and big windows on the east and west sides of the house. I stepped in off the porch. There were six beds, lined up on opposite walls underneath the window. Places for trophies, niches for medals, had been carved out into the wall. I bit my lip. _What if I can't fill any of those?_

"Hey," Aiden called from the door. He waved a piece of paper at me. "Here's your schedule."

I had a sickening, vivid flashback to Mrs. Bridget – apparently the creature couldn't eat, or hadn't eaten, my memories of her. I drew in a sharp breath and took the paper with a wan smile. "Thanks, Aiden."

"No problem, man. There should be a map in there too, help you get to your activities. I have to go, I'm late for archery. I'll see you later?"

"Yeah, later," I said, not really paying attention as I dropped my duffel next to the first bed and opened my schedule.

_Camp-Wide Wakeup Call: 8:00 a.m._

_Breakfast: 6:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m._

_Schedule for Nike Cabin, Week of September 1_

I scanned the schedule for Monday – today – and caught myself up. It was still my free period for another hour, followed by dinner and then a(n optional) bonfire. I sighed, shoved my schedule under my pillow, and went to unpacking.  


* * *

I decided that since I had the greater part of an hour of freedom left, I would explore the other parts of the camp. There were expansive strawberry fields, stretching from my feet to the horizon, and a huge forest that was divided, an Apollo camper told me, by a river. There was a lake, a climbing wall with hot lava, a beach, and an arena for sword fighting. Next to that was a large armory, smoking and steaming and hissing. I edged my way around that. Swords by themselves were bad enough. White-hot newly made swords weren't much better.

I met up with Aiden again outside the stables. He flashed me a grin and motioned me over to where he had been in conversation with a group of three other campers – two girls, one with black hair and one with brown, and one boy with hair as black as the girl's. "Guys, this is Prop, the son of Nike I was telling you about. Prop, this is Lucas Parry, son of Zeus," he said, gesturing to the boy, who gave me a stiff nod. "This," with a wave towards the raven-haired girl, "is Natalia Armstrong, daughter of Poseidon, and this," with a nod and smile towards the brown-haired girl, "is Kellie Perron, daughter of Demeter."

"What's up?" asked Kellie, smiling at me. She was by far the sweetest and most approachable of the three; I tried to stop myself from noticing her dimples when she smiled, but of course my mind then focused on her curves instead. I blushed.

"H-Hey." I tried for a smile, and I sort of succeeded. She seemed to appreciate the effort, her hazel eyes sparkling.

"Kell, we need to go," said the one with the curly, black hair – Natalia. Lucas put his hand on her arm.

"Wait. _You're_ the son of Nike?" he asked, and he was looking at me in almost the same way that that _thing_ had, but instead of hunger there was…anger, shimmering below the surface of his face. But why would he be angry at me…?

"Yes, I _just_ said that," said Aiden exasperatedly.

"Give him your sword."

"I – what?" Aiden asked, eyebrows threatening to disappear off his face. "Are you nuts? He hasn't even been here a full day, he doesn't have training in _dodging_, much less actually swinging a sword!"

Kellie apparently agreed. "Lucas, back off, okay? Enough is enough."

He ignored her and turned to Natalia, who rolled her eyes and handed him a sword, which he threw at me. I fumbled for the hilt, slicing my palm open on the blade, but managed to get a hold on the handle. The not-pointy end. Whatever it was called. "Um, Lucas, I don't know what you want me to – whoa!"

Instinctively, I crashed the sword I held against his as he attacked, clumsily. The blades connected on an askew angle and the vibrations from the metal shook my arms and I almost dropped the sword again. "Hey, c-c'mon, I don't know what I'm doing h-here!" I pleaded, backing up as he advanced for another attack.

His eyes were blue, hard, and cold. "Chiron says you killed a _limos_. I don't believe it."

"That – that thing – I didn't mean to kill it – well, okay, I did, but I had a reason! I don't want any fights!" I had an okay handle on the sword now, but it was slippery and hard to hold because of the blood from my palm. Aiden stepped forward.

"Enough, Lucas," he said, his tone commanding. Lucas shot him a disdainful look.

"It's not your fight, Conelly."

"I'm a senior counselor, _Parry_," spat Aiden furiously. "Prop hasn't done anything. You're out of line."

"I'm a senior counselor too, in case you forgot. I have my reasons for what I do."

"Put down the sword, Lucas."

"Why are you even worried, Aiden?" laughed Natalia. "He's a son of _Nike_. He's going to _win_. Calm down."

I started to breathe more quickly. I'd never won anything in my life, not a race or a fight or anything. I was last picked for every event, academic and otherwise. If Lucas was going to fight me until I won, I was going to end up dead. I tried to say as much, but I could barely breathe. Speaking was out of the question. Unfortunately, the argument was swaying my one protector. Aiden bit his lip and looked at me. "Is that right, Prop?"

I shook my head violently, the world blurring, my wavy hair falling into my eyes. "N-n-no," I forced out. "I never win. E-ever. At any-anything."

Aiden turned back to Lucas, who threw his sword down with disgust across his face. He bridged the gap between us and yanked the sword away from me. He tossed it to Natalia, picked up his own weapon, and left, giving Aiden a dirty look and me no acknowledgment at all. That was fine with me.

Aiden looked at me, confused. "What was that all about?"

I just shook my head to tell him that I had no idea, sinking to the dirt and cradling my right hand. It was bleeding worse than I had thought it was, a sort-of deep slice across the broadest part of my palm. Aiden hissed in displeasure. "Let's get you to the Apollo cabin," he said. "Chiron's all the way across camp, it's easier to go there." He pulled me to my feet with my left hand and walked with me.

"I'm sorry about that. Lucas is sometimes a pompous jerk, but he's never acted like that around anyone else." He looked puzzled, his eyebrows knitted together in thought. I gave a little laugh with an edge to it – bitter or hysterical, I couldn't tell which.

"It's me," I explained. "Bad luck. It follows me like a cloud. I've never won anything in my life. I've never succeeded in anything, even. And the people that try to be my friends get bad luck too, until they get away from me. I'm like a human jinx," I said, trying to smile. Apparently I wasn't doing so well, because Aiden slung an arm around my shoulder and gave me a smile of his own.

"I have enough good karma to keep you around," he informed me. "Let's go get that hand fixed."

We made our way to the Apollo cabin, but in my mind I was back outside the stables, sword in hand, watching Lucas strike at me with anger in his eyes. What had I done to deserve that kind of rage?

* * *

A/N

Speedy update is speedy. :D I really, really like this story. Like, I don't like the writing itself - the words. But I love my characters, and I love the act of writing, and it's just...it's just _fun_, dammit. I don't know. I haven't felt this way since I wrote my last novel chapter. I wish I felt this way more often. XD

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**The Eye of Gods**

_by: dnrl_

Chapter Three: Play With Fire

* * *

"All set, Prop!" The cheerful Apollo camper, Logan, clapped his hand on my shoulder and gave me a mega-watt grin. "Change the dressing every couple of days, and you'll be healed up in a week or so. Be more careful around swords, yeah?"

"Yeah," I exhaled, smiling. "Thanks, Logan."

"No problem! See you two later," he said as he turned away to help a sibling with something, flashing a smile at Aiden and me. We saw ourselves out of the bustling cabin and made our way towards the lake, wandering aimlessly.

Aiden was still hung up on Lucas' behavior. He kept telling me that Lucas wasn't really a jerk, just arrogant, and he didn't have anything against me when they had been talking about me earlier.

"Why were they asking about me?" I asked, puzzled, cradling my hurt hand in my healthy one. "I just got here. I mean, maybe they were nearby when Jeff or whoever hit me with that volleyball, but…does he have this angry thing towards unlucky people?"

Aiden snorted. "They weren't. They have off period when I do, and we were all hanging around the rock wall. And besides, Lucas isn't the luckiest person himself. He's not quite as bad off as _you_ tell me you are, but he's not exactly winning every hand in a card game, either. No, they found me and were asking me if I was _positive _that you were a son of Nike, what you were like, how old you were, if you had any training. It was weird; Natalia and Lucas were really intense, and Kellie was _nervous_."

I bit my lip, tugging on the constricting binding. "I don't understand," I said, sighing. "I haven't even had a chance to _do_ anything yet."

Aiden grinned and cuffed me around the head. "Don't let it get to you. It's your first day, everything gets better from here." He glanced at his watch and let out a curse in a weird language. "Ancient Greek," he explained when he caught my questioning glance. "And we need to be in our cabin for the call to mess in about five minutes. Let's head on back."

Later that night, after the bonfire (which was _amazing_), I lay in my bunk in my cabin, lights out, staring at the ceiling. The pale birch wood was glowing in the silver moonlight, and the crickets were chirping in the woods outside. Fireflies, late for the season, flickered on and off sporadically outside the window. The only noise besides the crickets was the distant roar of the ocean and a soft breeze.

I turned my face to my pillow, letting my emotions back into my head after a day of suppression. The first thing I felt, and the strongest, was the sense of loss that had haunted me since my dad died; the second was an overwhelming wave of confusion at all of the stuff that was happening to me; followed by a softer, sadder sense of grief for Mrs. Bridget, and then bewilderment at the monster that had attacked, and hopelessness that had echoed deep down while I watched my only family drive away and leave me in this place that made no sense. Rejection hissed dark thoughts in my mind when I thought of my informal greeting from my mother, and Hermes' attempt to soften the emotion had only worked a little. But _still_.

I _wouldn't_ let all of this beat me down. I _couldn't._ I had to survive this, because really, this was nothing next to my dad. My dad, who was so strong, who taught me never to judge and never to give in, was gone, and without that pillar of support I felt that my world was collapsing. But I would find even footing on solid ground, because that's what my dad would do. He had shown me how to live. I just had to follow his example. Because I clearly wasn't my mother's son – I was my father's. More than anything, I was his. And I wouldn't let him down.

With those thoughts echoing sleepily in my head, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

But sleep didn't offer the comforts it usually did.

My dreams were nonsense, most of the time, just stupid stuff. But this dream was different. I was lying on cool, gritty sand at the base of a gigantic pyramid at night, moonlight glinting off of the ancient stones. I scrambled around, putting the pyramid at my back, and looked up at two gigantic figures towering over me. They were fighting.

"You have put us all at risk, you fool!" screeched one. Literally _screeched_. His eyes were black, and his head was shaped like an hawk's. I gulped and tried desperately to sink into the sand underneath me. The cruel, unforgiving curve of his beak was harsh in the silver light.

"You know nothing of risk, Horus," replied the other man, his voice icy cold to Horus' heated violence. His head was a bird's as well, but I couldn't tell which kind. His beak was long and slender, curving down, and the feathers on the back of his head were rising. "You have learned nothing, still rash and foolish in battle now as you were all those eons ago. This is larger than us alone."

Horus responded with an avian hiss of displeasure. "God of wisdom – it is a false title if I have ever heard one! Over-pretentious preening creature that you are, what do you know of anything? We are strong, powerful, our thrones secure, as opposed to those weak-minded beings who dare to call themselves _gods_. They are made of nothing but human flaws, Thoth! What would you have them involved in, pray tell? Shall they be made our _equals_?"

"It is what the time calls for, Horus, and you know as well as I that when Fate intervenes there is little we can do, save to help it along its way." Thoth's calm voice was belied by the still-at-ready ruff of feathers on his head. "They are not as weak as you say."

"Weaker, then!" spat Horus. "The Greeks have always been weak, and they remain so! They are degenerates, removed from their home by migrating systems and beliefs! We remain strong and secure in the land of our birth and ruling!"

"_Be that as it may_, it does not change what must be done." Thoth suddenly cocked his head, beady eyes flashing still in the dark. "Be silent for a moment, Horus. I sense something."

I held my breath, my blood pounding in my ears. I could feel the grains of sand digging into my palms, the hard press of the stone against me back, and the constant treacherous thudding of my heart. I nearly shouted in panic when Thoth's cunning bird face focused on me.

"Even now, Horus, see your error. Here is a little Greek among us," he said, no malice in his tone. He leaned forward and made a sign over my forehead with his forefinger and thumb. "Be released, and dream no more this night." He pressed his index finger against my forehead. My world went black, my mind blissfully blank, and I fell into the sweetest dreamless sleep I had ever had.  


* * *

When I woke up, the sun was rising.

Blearily, I grabbed my watch from the bedside table. Five thirty was way too early to be awake, but my head was stuffed full of questions and I couldn't go back to sleep. I sighed and settled back against my pillow, sorting through the questions.

I threw off the ones about Lucas and his friends and yesterday, because I knew that I didn't know the answer to any of those. Instead, I focused on the blurry images of the only dream I had had the night before: two half-people arguing in the moonlight. Bird-headed people. What had they been fighting about? Something involving the Greeks, the Greek gods. I think. Maybe. Who were they? Horus and…somebody else. Thor? But no, that was Norse. T-something, I couldn't remember.

I tossed and turned for a few more minutes before deciding that doing nothing wasn't answering the questions. I yanked off my pajama bottoms and t-shirt, pulling on a clean (I thought) white undershirt, my bright orange camp shirt, and a pair of gym shorts. I toed my beat-up tennis shoes on, yawned, checked my schedule, and made my way outside.

There were a few other campers up and on the movie, most of them either Apollo or Hermes kids. Aiden had told me that he and most of his siblings hated being woken up early, the Ares kids weren't friendly no matter when they got out of bed, and most of the other campers didn't care one way or the other. But some Hermes kids liked jogging in the morning, and the majority of Apollo campers were naturally early risers. Big shock there.

It still gave me a weird feeling, seeing these kids and these cabins and thinking about the names of gods that, until a day ago, I'd thought weren't even real. _Mythology_ – the study of myths. Not the study of real stuff. But it was easier to accept than it had been yesterday, and I guess that that was progress. I made my way to the Big House where Chiron apparently stayed. Aiden had named him as the authority on most stuff, so I figured that he could have some sort of insight into my dream. And I needed to tell it to someone – I _had_ to. I didn't know why, but it was a pressing need in the back of my mind.

Luckily, there was already activity at the Big House. I could see people moving around in various rooms, and a few times people crossed in front of the window in the living room downstairs. I tread lightly up the creaking stairs and onto the porch, rapping three times on the door.

"Come in," called Chiron. I pushed into the room, looking around cautiously. The bottom fell out of my stomach when my eyes landed on Lucas Parry leaning up against a Ping Pong table. It only got worse as I took in Natalia off to one side and Kellie sitting on a fold-out chair. She gave me a weak, harried smile; Lucas and Natalia settled on glaring at me. "Oh, Prop, you're awake already! What happened to your hand?"

"T-t-t – a-accident," I finished lamely, unable to focus under the combined glare of the children of Poseidon and Zeus. "S-sorry to bother you, um, I-I-I'll come back later. See ya!" I stepped back out onto the porch, almost slamming the door shut behind me. I swallowed hard and took a shaky breath as I stumbled down the steps. I had just touched the grass when I heard the door behind me swing open.

"We need you in here, Prop," Chiron called out. His lips were a tight line, no sign of the smile that had put me at relative ease yesterday. I felt myself tensing up.

"Are you s-sure?" I asked. My voice was more of a raspy squeak than anything intelligible, but Chiron seemed to understand nervous-speak. He nodded, and the motion looked like a death sentence. Fighting to keep the emotions down, I made my way back into the room. Chiron closed the door behind me and waved me into a chair against the wall. I fell into it, looking steadily at my bandaged hand and concentrating on lacing and unlacing my fingers.

"Chiron, we don't need him!" Lucas's voice was angry, like it had been yesterday, only without the condescending sneer. "He's useless, he can't fight, he apparently can't even win anything. He's a stammering, sniveling coward."

"As I recall, Mr. Parry, you weren't much better when you came to camp, either," Chiron said, his even voice close to snapping. "With training and time, he'll become better."

"We can't afford either," Natalia cut in, voice cold as ice. "You didn't see him with that sword, Chiron. The only reason he knew where the hilt was was because he knew it wasn't pointy. It would take months to even get him to a competent level in swordplay. Months we _don't have_."

"You have a somewhat valid point, but facts are facts, Natalia," Chiron said, his voice stony. "You heard the line in the prophecy. _Victory's son_, it said. As far as I know, Prospero is the only son of Nike the camp has ever had, or appears likely to have for the near future."

"He's the worst son of Victory that there could possibly be!" Lucas exploded. I closed my eyes, fighting his words in my head. I wasn't. I _wasn't_. I wasn't horrible, I wasn't stupid, I _wasn't_ the worst. I couldn't be. I didn't want to be the loser. I never did.

Somehow, it seemed like I always _was_.

"Prop, I wanted to talk to you about this in a different setting, but as Natalia is so keen on reminding us, we're running short on time." I could sense Chiron standing in front of me, but I didn't lift my head or open my eyes. I was afraid to, because I thought that I might see an acknowledgment of what I was. Of what I didn't want to be.

"There was a prophecy made," Chiron continued, undeterred by my lack of response, "by our current Oracle, a Miss Dare. This prophecy speaks of the reforming of Kronos in Greece. Four heroes are to go on the quest, and three have been chosen. Up until yesterday, the fourth hero was conspicuously absent, and his absence delaying the quest for longer than it should have. The prophecy spoke of a son of Victory – a son of Nike."

My breath wasn't coming out of my lungs correctly, and my brain seemed to be having an abrupt meltdown. "N-n-no," I forced out through gritted teeth, eyes closed. "It's n-n-not me. G-get someone else."

"Prop."

I ignored him.

"_Prospero_."

I clenched my eyes shut.

"_Look at me_."

I took a shaky breath and looked up, defiance and fear fighting in my face. He was looking at me, but there was no pity. There was kindness, and sympathy, and the offer of help, but no pity, no confirmation of my status as Ultimate Loser. Nothing that I had feared. The comfort wasn't much, but even the littlest bit helped.

"I don't want a quest," I said, my voice pleading. "I just want to stay here and do the stuff here. I want to be a normal camper. As normal as it gets here, anyway."

Chiron smiled. "Normal doesn't apply here, Prop. _You're_ not normal, _I'm_ not normal, _no one_ here is normal. We don't get a chance to make choices here, Prop. We're dictated by greater powers. Sometimes gods. Sometimes not. We don't get the choice of whether we want a quest or not."

"There are always two choices," I said, automatically parroting my aunt. I bit my lip. _Which one are you choosing, Prospero?_ asked the little voice inside my head. _Are you letting the world run over you, or are you running with the world? Which choice are you making **right** **now**?_ I took another steadying breath and looked Chiron in the eye. "I – I don't want to fall," I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "I'll do it."

A sigh of relief from Chiron and Kellie, and a moan of defeat from Natalia and Lucas. "I've been waiting for a major quest like this for _five years_," spat Lucas, furious. "And he just _waltzes_ in here and gets one?!"

"You are still the leader of the quest, Lucas," Chiron said as he attempted to soothe Lucas's temper.

"Like it matters? With _him_ there, it won't be an honor! It'll be a disgrace!" He glared at me. "_No _other camper has gone on a quest this quickly, and definitely not one this big within their first three years, even. What makes him so special, huh? He can't even get his own mother's trait right! He's a _loser_, Chiron, not a _victor!_"

"That is _enough_, Mr. Parry!" Chiron roared. "I will not stand for you speaking that way to another camper, no matter how angry you are! To your cabin, now!" His expression cold, he turned to the remaining two girls as Lucas stormed from the room. "Go pack your bags. Argus will be bringing you to Manhattan in three hours." They left wordlessly, Kellie shooting me a somewhat friendly, sympathetic glance. I tried for a smile, and she sent one back as she closed the door behind herself.

Chiron sighed and rubbed his face in his hands. "My apologies, Prop," he said at length, collecting himself. "I am not normally so temperamental, but Lucas is being particularly mulish on this subject, and he had no right to say those things. But you didn't come here for this drama. Is there something wrong?"

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Why would I burden this person with my stupid dream? It was a _dream_, not anything else, and he clearly had enough on his plate. He placed a hand on my shoulder.

"_Whatever_ is bothering you," he assured me. "It will not kill me, I promise."

I sighed and related what I remembered of my dream to him, mimicking the gesture the T-named man had used with his hand to send me away. When I finished, Chiron was frowning and staring into space thoughtfully. "Horus," he muttered. "And Thoth, I suppose. Well, this _is_ an interesting turn of events. And, as it happens, it is related to your quest. Come with me."

We rose and walked into a room deeper in the house, a comfortable-looking living-room sort of place. He stood by the fireplace, and I sat on the couch opposite him. "At the beginning of August, Miss Dare, the Oracle, relayed a prophecy to us that went as follows:

_To home of old four heroes go,_

_And there will meet a reborn foe._

_But Greece alone cannot not succeed -  
_

_Another pantheon must lead._

_Victory's son will persevere,_

_At cost of that which he holds near._

"Victory's son is, of course, you. Home of old deals with the original home of the gods – that is, the land of Greece. We are assuming that a reborn foe is Kronos, of course, but until recently the two lines below that mystified us. We are aware of the existence of other gods outside of the Greek system, but we know of none that have taken an active role in many centuries. It is here that your dream is illuminating – Thoth and Horus are Egyptian gods, and from what you remember of their dialogue it is clear that the Egyptian pantheon is now dynamic again after having been in stasis for a few hundred years."

I looked at him skeptically. "It was a dream, though, just…my mind, my subconscious. Right? It could mean anything."

He raised his eyebrows. "You need only look at your own mind to know that you know that that is not the truth."

I sighed and plucked at the bandage on my hand. "I guess."

He smiled and laid a hand on my head. "You should go pack and then eat a good breakfast. Argus, our security chief, will drive you to Manhattan in about three hours to allow Natalia to obtain permission to fly, and then you'll board a plane to the U.K. in the next hour or so. You need your energy."

I left him behind in the room and I left the house, not looking back. I packed what little I had unpacked, moving like I was in a dream, and the food I ate was tasteless. I scraped some bacon and pancakes into the fire in the middle of the dining area and whispered up a prayer to my mother just like Aiden had told me to. _Hey, Mom. I know that you're not proud of me – but I'll try to do the best I can. I will_.

"Why so somber, Prop?"

Aiden came up from behind me, ruffling my hair as I walked back to the table. He had told me yesterday that it used to be divided by god, but now there were too many, so there were just huge, long tables for all the campers to use. He slung his leg across the bench as he sat next to me, heaping his plate high with scrambled eggs and buttery grits. "So what's with the long face?" he asked, slurping a glass of orange juice, gray eyes fixed on me.

"I have a quest."

Then I had a face full of orange juice.

"Oh gods, I'm so sorry – here, have my napkin!" Together, we wiped the sticky orange juice off of my face, his expression apologetic but still a little shocked. "Do you really – a _quest_? But you just got here yesterday! You're so new! What is Chiron thinking?!"

I wiped more juice off of my face and began to wring out my shirt. I focused on the table, the plate, the steaming biscuits, anything but Aiden. "There's a line in this prophecy about a son of Victory, and they think that it means me."

"Who else would it mean? And who's 'they'? And why aren't you looking at me? I swear, I'm not going to spit in your face again, that was an accident and I really am sorry."

I tried to laugh. It was a sort of pathetic attempt. I looked up at him and sighed. "I don't – I feel like a coward, because I don't want to go on this stupid quest. I don't, and apparently questing is a big deal or whatever, and – I'm just a new kid. I want to get used to this first. I'm afraid, Aiden."

He laughed. "Is _that_ why you're avoiding my face? Because you're ashamed? Prop, for my first quest, I'd been here for three years and I was terrified out of my _mind_. You're brand new, you lost your dad, you got a head wound in the first two seconds on the campground, you're not completely oriented – I'd have been long gone by now. You're braver than I would've been. There's nothing to be ashamed of, I promise." He smiled at me, eyes crinkling at the edges, and I couldn't help but smile back. "Now, who are _they_?"

I sighed, all happiness gone. "Those jerks from yesterday and Kellie."

He gaped. "Is _that_ why Lucas and Natalia were so upset?"

"He's angry because this is his major quest, and I'm inexperienced, a burden, and a jinx. He doesn't want me going with them. I guess he was testing me yesterday, I don't know. Natalia feels the same way, I guess. Kellie…Kellie's nicer than they are, that's for sure."

"Hey, at least you'll have an ally," he sympathized, chewing thoughtfully on a slice of bacon. "When do you leave?"

I checked my watch. "Two and a half hours."

He nodded, crunched down the last of his bacon, and rose, plate and food in hand. "Come with me" he said. "I'm going to make my offering, and then we'll find out how much swordplay we can teach you in two and a half hours."  


* * *

"Ow!"

I was flat on my back in the dirt in the arena for what felt like the thousandth time, but was probably only the twentieth or so. Aiden loomed over me and offered me a hand up, which I took gratefully.

"I don't think that swords are my thing," I told him, retrieving the weapon I'd been practicing with from the dirt a few feet away from where I'd fallen. "Maybe archery?"

He grinned at me. "Yeah, like I'm letting you _near_ a bow and arrow. Maybe the sword is weighted wrong for you. Is it balanced?"

"Is it _what_ now?"

He chuckled. "Balanced. Even. Easy to swing."

"Oh. No."

He rolled his eyes, minus exasperation. "Here. Try this one. Lighter."

I fumbled the catch and managed to avoid cutting off my toe, which counted as a good thing in my book. Grunting, I hefted it up and swung it once or twice, but it was still…_off_. So were the heavier swords that I tried, and the rest of the light swords.

"I like clubs," I offered, handing the latest blade back to Aiden with an apologetic expression. "Just whack things."

He laughed. "It has the advantage of being simple, I guess, but we don't actually…have clubs, here. I don't think, anyway. Here, try one of these."

He pulled out a short, stout sword that looked a little bit more durable than the other swords he'd showed me. "This is a broadsword," he explained. "For a while, the Hephaestus kids were experimenting with different types of weapons. It's a Roman blade. Better for close-up fighting. Try it out."

I did, and I wound up getting the blade stuck in the ground. I shot Aiden a look, and he smiled. "Okay, broadswords out. How'd you even do that?"

"I don't know," I moaned, tossing the bronze broadsword onto a shimmering pile of weapons.

"Well, this is the last of our blade stock," he told me, reaching into the back of the armory closet he was drawing the weapons from. "I should say 'these,' since they're meant to be used as a pair." He re-emerged with a pair of strangely curved knives with short, stout handles. "I'm not too big on the whole foreign weapons thing, but these are called kukri – I think. From Nepal, maybe? All I remember is that Chiron told us that they were mainly used for slicing, not stabbing. I don't know how you'll be with them, but hey, we're kind of out of options."

Sighing, I took them into my hands. Aiden helped me hold them correctly – the actual edge of the blade was pointed inwards and slightly up, with the curves nearly coming together. He then walked me through the easiest attack with the kukri, something he called the stab and slice. "First, you jab one blade into their gut. They double up instinctively, and you cut off their head. Simple!"

I stared at him blankly. "You're kidding me, right?"

He sighed. "You've killed a monster before, Prop."

I bit my lip. "Yeah, but – decapitation? I – I don't know if I can do that. Mentally _or_ physically."

He blew some hair out of his eyes. "They're _monsters_, Prop. They will kill you and your friends. They will kill your aunt, they will kill me, they will kill anything that they feel like killing. The only way to keep that from happening is to kill _them_ first."

I swallowed. "I'm still not the strongest person, Aiden."

"The heads on the knives are heavier," he said. "They were basically designed for this purpose. You don't need to be Hercules."

I looked down at the wickedly sharp blade in my hand as it glimmered, bronze shining in the overhead sunlight. "There won't be any blood, will there?"

"Just dust," Aiden assured me. He put a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, Prop. It's okay. Do you think you can use these?"

I pressed my lips together and nodded. They felt better in my hands than anything else had before this, and they were easier to use than anything else we'd tried. "I can do it," I said.

Now I only had to convince myself.

We practiced for the remaining half-hour until I was sweaty and panting. I still had half an hour left to shower and report to the bus.

Still, there was something burning in the back of my mind. Something Chiron had said.

"_At cost of that which he holds near._"

What was I going to have to lose?

* * *

A/N

...dude, I'm kind of shocked with the update rate. It's really freaking me out. D:

_In other news_...kukri/kukhri/the gurkha knife is a real kind of knife, and the attack described is the most common attack used. Commonly, they don't come in pairs, but I like a double-blade attack. So sue me.

And Lucas is just a cranky biotch. He's not that bad. Really. :D

See you guys in...um...another couple of days, I guess. XD


	4. Chapter 4

**The Eye of Gods**

_by: dnrl_

Chapter Four: Oil and Water

* * *

The bus ride to Manhattan was a silent one.

Argus had turned out to be a man covered with eyes. Everywhere. I shivered a bit, sinking lower on the hard, uncomfortably cushioned bus seat. I didn't like being watched normally, but being watched constantly by five or six eyes, depending, wasn't good at all. I was sitting in the seat at the back – I had been the first to get on the bus, and had made a beeline for the last seat. I had two windows and I could sink out of the line of sight. It was a good scenario.

Lucas and Natalia were sitting together near the front, with Kellie awkwardly stationed near the middle, as though she wasn't sure who she wanted to sit with. She was really trying to be nice to me, and she'd already apologized once for the way that Lucas had talked about me. "I don't know what his problem is," she told me, her mouth twisted with chagrin. "He's usually not such a _big _jerk."

"Kellie," Natalia called from the front of the bus. "Come sit with us, we need to talk game plan."

"Leave your newest toy," Lucas added. "We'll fill him in once we get everything set."

She shot me a look. "I think that he should be part of the planning too, Lucas. He'll never learn anything if you exclude him from everything!"

"He'll learn what he needs to learn when he needs to learn it," Lucas scoffed. "Now get up here."

With a sigh, she rose and stopped to get used to the rolling gait of the bus as it sped down the bumpy dirt road towards the highway. After finding her footing, she stumbled forward and threw herself into the seat in front of Lucas and Natalia. They put their heads together and lowered their voices so that I couldn't even hear their mumblings over the rumble of the bus.

That was fine by me.

…

Only it wasn't. Kellie was right – I was new, and afraid, and I should at least be able to understand what we were up against. All I knew right now was that we had to fly to Greece, and since Natalia was a daughter of Poseidon, she had to get permission from Zeus to board a plane. I didn't actually think that Zeus would kill his son and the rest of the innocent passengers to spite his brother's child, but I guess that gods didn't have the same code of morals that normal humans did. Apparently it was only Natalia who needed permission, because Zeus didn't have a problem with Nike or with Demeter. Anyway, once we got that, we'd be getting onto a plane that would fly us into London, about a ten hour trip. From there, we'd have a short hop over to the airport in Athens. And then…we'd stop the Titan Lord. Or something.

Like I said – I didn't know much.

I sighed, laid down on the seat, closed my eyes, and tried to sleep.

* * *

I woke up on the bus floor, Kellie standing over me. She smiled and offered her hand, pulling me up and into my abandoned seat. I wiped a glimmer of drool from the corner of my mouth, blushing. "So, um. Where are we?" I asked, looking at her. She had changed into jeans and a sweater, with her wheat-blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen outside of the movies, and it was all I could do not to stare.

"We're stopped outside the Empire State Building. Lucas and Kellie went up, but the doorman turned you and me down. He said that only Lucas and Kellie were authorized to go up today." She laughed. "I guess we're not good enough for Olympus."

"You're good enough for anywhere," I blurted, my mouth acting before my mind could catch up. My cheeks burned and I stared resolutely at the floor, my lips pressed together.

She laughed again. "You're sweet. Do you have a jacket or anything?"

I looked up at her when I found the courage and shook my head. "No. I didn't think I'd need one."

She tsk'd. "It's chilly and damp in England at this time of year. C'mon, we have about half an hour, let's go shopping for a jacket so you don't freeze to death."

"So I won't be cold when the monsters eat me?" I joked, standing and following her out of the bus. We nodded to a half-asleep Argus, and a few of his awake eyes winked at us.

"That's the general idea, yeah," she laughed. We stepped onto the sidewalk and she spun in a circle, her arms swinging out like a pinwheel. She stopped after a few seconds, giggling breathlessly. She had _really_ cute dimples. "Have you ever done that before?"

I shook my head, a small smile growing on my face. "My dad used to swing me around like that when I was little, but I haven't done it in a while."

"Well, that's no fun!" she chided. "C'mon! Let your inner kid out!"

Bemused, I spun once or twice. She rolled her eyes, smiled, and grabbed my hand. She spun us out together, my unheld arm flailing about wildly. We almost hit a couple of flabbergasted business people, decked out in suits and briefcases, but I couldn't bring myself to care if they were staring. Kellie was right; this was _fun_. We broke into fits of giggles, stopping spinning because it hurt to breathe.

"C'mon, newbie, let's get you a jacket," she said at last. She skipped down the street a few paces before looking back at me and beckoning me forward with a smile and a wave of her hand. "Well? _Come on!_"

I ran after her, unable to keep a smile off my face. Her cheerfulness was infectious, and as we browsed through the racks at a nearby store, she surprised me when she told me that most of her siblings thought her happiness annoying.

"Why?" I asked, confounded.

"Well, mostly because most of them are sticks in the mud who believe that being responsible is this big deal, and it's important to follow the rules. Not that it's _not_, most of the time, because they're there for a _reason_, but there are times when you just need to – dance, or sing in the middle of the street, or run around like a maniac in the rain. Have you ever done _that_?"

"No," I answered, grinning. "I can't say that I have."

"We'll fix that," she assured me. "Here, try on this fleece."

A few jackets later, and we had picked out a dark tan hoodie with the words "Live out loud" scrawled across the front in some kind of loopy script. She flipped the hood over my head and beamed. "It's almost the same color as your eyes!" she announced, tugging it down over my forehead. "A little bit darker, and they'd be the same shade. Here, take it off so we can pay for it."

We paid using the money my aunt had given me to spend if the camp had a store, since I got the feeling that I wouldn't be using the store much for a while. I tugged it on as we left, only to have a clerk stop and demand to see our receipt. We fumbled around in our pockets, backtracking where we'd been, and eventually had to persuade the desk clerk to come over and tell the other guy that we'd actually bought the jacket. He gave me a suspicious look, and when the burglary alarm went off a few seconds later as I walked through the door, he yanked me back in.

"What kind of funny stuff are you trying to pull, kid?" he demanded angrily. The desk clerk spoke up.

"Darren, man, chill out. He paid for it, okay? The scanner wouldn't work, I had to do a manual ring up. It must not've cleared the system. Let him go, he paid."

Darren released my shirt, spun me around, and pushed me out the door. Kellie stared hard at the front window for a moment, frowning. "I was _sure_ I had the receipt," she muttered, checking her pockets again. "I know that I put it in here…"

"It's okay," I assured her. "This kind of stuff is sort of normal for me."

She shot me a sympathetic look. "That sucks."

"Tell me about it. At least I got to keep what I bought this time," I offered, smiling.

She shook her head. "You're a positive kind of kid, aren't you?"

"My dad always said that the only way to be was to be an optimist," I replied as we turned back to the bus. "He was always one. I don't think he ever thought about something in a negative way. Even after he lost his job and we had to move." It took me a minute to realize that Kellie probably didn't want to hear about my past, and here I was, blabbering away. I blushed again and shut my mouth tightly.

We were silent the rest of the way to the bus, where we found Lucas and Natalia waiting for us. Lucas looked at his watch, shot a look to Kellie, and a glare to me. "Where were you? We were going to leave you."

For some reason, this made Kellie's mouth tighten up in a frown. "Thanks, Lucas. Did you get permission, Nat?"

"Nat_alia_, and yes, I did," replied the curly-haired girl. She sat with long legs crossed and arms folded together underneath her – well. I looked away, biting my lip and trying not to blush any more. "We also were given a blessing from Athena to help our weapons make it through airport security. She also offered a salve to make the blades unbreakable. We already took care of yours," she said, twirling a curl around a finger carelessly.

"Awesome," offered Kellie. She took her previous seat by them, and I resumed my lonely vigil at the back of the bus as we rattled along the street towards JFK.

* * *

I really didn't like long flights.

The plane ride from Washington to New York hadn't really registered, because I was still out of it, but being on a plane over an ocean for ten hours with only one person who tolerated me was almost unbearable. Kellie had fallen asleep halfway through, with Natalia joining her about an hour later, but I was too hyped up to sleep, and whatever was keeping Lucas from closing his eyes was something he wasn't sharing. Not that he would have, anyway. He listened to his iPod the entire time, staring out the window at the clouds rushing by in the darkening sky.

I wished I'd had any sort of music. I loved sounds, music especially, all kinds. It didn't really matter if it was Mozart, Muzak, or Eminem, I was pretty much content with what I was listening to as long as it was interesting. It was a trait I'd inherited from my dad, either through genetics or through absorption. He always had music on somewhere – either on the speakers in our house, from a CD player in the bathroom, an mP3 or Walkman, wherever he was there was music. Any kind of music, he didn't really have a preference. Neither did I, apparently.

Beside me, Kellie stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She looked over at me and smiled sleepily, stretching. "Why aren't you napping?" she asked.

"Too awake," I replied, smiling. Lucas looked over at us, rolled his eyes, and went back to staring out the window.

"You want my iPod?" she yawned.

"No, really, I couldn't – " I objected. She ignored me, rummaging in her duffel under her seat and pulling out a little purple Nano.

"It's mostly old stuff, so if you don't like it just stick it back in." She yawned again. "Going back to sleep now."

"Okay. Thank you," I said, smiling as I turned it on and pushed the buds into my ears. Frank Sinatra crooned into my auditory canal, and then Percy Faith, followed by Dean Martin. Slowly, slowly, I was sung to sleep.

When I woke up, Natalia and Lucas were sharing his headphones and Kellie's head was in my lap. Blinking rapidly and fighting the blood away from my cheeks, I checked my watch, then realized I hadn't reset it, so it would be useless. As though sensing my predicament, the overhead speaker crackled into static-y life. "This is your c-_crsshhhhs_ speaking, and I'm _crhshssss_ we'll be landing in London in about ten minutes. Please _shhhhhrsh_, place all seats in upright position, and fasten your seatbelts."

Gently, I tapped Kellie's shoulder. "Kellie, you have to sit up," I said softly. "Kellie, we're landing, you have to sit up."

With an exaggerated groan, she picked herself up and flopped against her seat. "Why?" she whined theatrically. "I'm _sleepy_."

"You can sleep on the flight to Greece," Lucas said curtly, rolling his earphones around his iPod and stuffing it into his duffel. I did the same with Kellie's.

We descended through the sky towards London, the first leg of our journey almost over.

I relaxed. _This might not be so bad_.

* * *

"Oh gods, I'm going to be sick."

I was helping Kellie support a severely green Natalia, whose knees had apparently gone rubbery. We guided her to a bench and she collapsed onto it, her hands pressed against her mouth. She groaned and Lucas cursed in Ancient Greek under his breath.

"Natalia, why didn't you say something?" he asked.

"What, you think I _knew_ that I was sick?" she snapped. She was breaking out in a cold sweat, and had started to shiver. I pulled off my new hoodie and wrapped it around her. Kellie pulled it off and handed it to me, an odd look on her face.

"It's new," she said, forcing a smile. "Wouldn't want Natalia puke on it. She can use my spare." She rummaged in her bag and tugged out a black jacket, which she draped over her sick friend like a blanket. "What are we going to do, Lucas?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, I don't know. Chiron just IM'd and said that the plane tickets were suddenly rejected and the payment denied, and he doesn't know why, so we need to use the emergency cash to buy tickets for the next plane instead. Only half of the emergency cash is suddenly missing, so I don't know what we're supposed to do."

"I'm going to hurl," Natalia warned, forcing herself to her feet. She almost fell, but Kellie and Lucas caught her.

"Take her to the bathroom," Lucas ordered.

Kellie caught up both of their duffle bags. "In case she doesn't make it," she explained. The two girls shuffled off quickly towards the women's restroom. Lucas ran a hand through his already disheveled black hair.

"You. I'm going to the ticket counter to buy tickets. Wait here for those two to get back, and then find the next flight to Greece on the board over there, okay? I'll be at that gate."

I nodded and he scooped up his bags and took off briskly for the other side of the airport, leaving me alone and waiting.

I waited for half an hour.

Then another half hour.

I had fixed my watch, and I couldn't understand it. Lucas should've come back for me when he realized that either we hadn't found the flight or that the girls were still in the bathroom. I felt horrible for Natalia; I'd been sick like that once before, and it had been hell. Overhead, announcements boomed from the loudspeaker, echoing so that I couldn't understand them.

Another fifteen minutes passed, and I finally got up and went over to the Information desk.

"Um, excuse me, m'am."

The woman didn't respond, entirely absorbed with her magazine. "Um, m'am, hello?"

She looked up, popped a pink bubble, and gave me a look. "What?"

"Um, my friend came over here to book four tickets on a flight to Greece. Can you tell me which gate the next flight leaves from? It's not on the board."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "The last plane to Greece left about an hour ago, love. Are you sure that was where you friend was going?"

I felt a cold weight settle in my stomach. _An hour ago_.

I was so stupid.

"Yes, m'am," I heard myself saying. "Thank you for your help."

I dragged myself back to the bench and dropped down. My hoodie was sitting where Kellie had left it, and the odd look on her face when Lucas had mentioned leaving us and her reluctance to let Natalia use my hoodie suddenly made sense. _She didn't want to leave me_, I thought. _She felt guilty_. She had made sure that I could keep the hoodie, that I wouldn't lose it.

_"It's new," she said, forcing a smile. "Wouldn't want Natalia puke on it."_

"I'm such an idiot," I muttered to myself, burying my face in my hands, squeezing my eyes shut. "Idiot, idiot, idiot. _Perchè sono così stupido?_"

I shook myself out of it. I still had Chiron's number, on a piece of paper in my duffel bag.

Which was gone.

I replayed Lucas's walking away in my head, groaning when I realized that he had had _two_ bags when before he had only had one. "He took my bag. _Dio, perchè me?_" I bit my cheek again. Lapsing into Italian was a bad habit. I needed to cut it out. I spoke English. _English_.

"Are you alright, young man?"

I looked up to see an elderly gentleman wearing an old-style traveler's cloak peering down at me through rounded glasses with oddly intelligent hazel eyes. "Yes. No. I'm not sure, sir," I finished miserably.

"A little American boy. Here was me, thinking you were Italian," he chuckled. He sat down on the bench beside me, hand on the small of his back, groaning. "O-o-h, I can hear my knees creaking. Old age is never good to you, boy. So what seems to be the problem?"

"The people I was travelling with left me. They caught the last flight out to where we were going, and I have no money and no contact number."

"What a ghastly accident!"

I choked on a laugh, too miserable to be nervous. "It wasn't an accident. They planned it. They knew what they were going to do before we even got on the plane in New York."

He made a small disapproving noise in the back of his throat. "You need to get yourself to the U.S. Embassy, boy. I'm sure that they could take care of you there, perhaps even get you on a flight back home tonight."

"But I need to be with my friends in Greece."

"The people who abandoned you? They don't sound like friends to me." Moaning, he pushed himself off the bench. He was leaning on a dark, wooden cane that I was almost positive he hadn't been holding a few minutes ago, but I brushed it away. I wasn't the most observant person, especially now.

"Where's the embassy? How do I get there?" I asked, biting my lip. It sounded like my only hope; no one had told me how to do the rainbow message thing, and I didn't have anyone I could call. My aunt's phone was disconnected, and her cell phone always off. I had nobody else.

"I tell you what. It's just along my way back home, I can drop you off there if you'd like."

I pressed my lips together. All the lessons from my childhood were pressing against my head: never go with a stranger, never trust strange people, never take candy from a guy in a car. And the half-blood stuff wasn't making things much easier; what if he was another Ms. Waldron? What if he was a monster in disguise, waiting until we were alone to turn around and eat me, bite by bite? But my instincts weren't screaming; they were telling me that he was a nice old man, nothing more. Like the grandfather I'd never had.

I huffed a sigh and looked up at him. "Okay," I said. "Thank you, sir."

"Thank me when we get there, dear boy," he chuckled, laugh lines appearing in his face. "Come along, then." We took off together through the airport, and he chatted to me the whole time. He told me about his nieces and nephews, and his family and their crazy antics. He made it sound like a Spanish soap opera, and I couldn't help from laughing a few times. He drove a low-slung, polished black expensive-looking car with leather seats that still smelled new even though he assured me he'd had it for years.

"This car is probably older than you," he told me with a grin. "Onward, to the Embassy! Tally-ho! Charge!"

* * *

"Here you are, my boy," he said, pulling up to a nondescript tan building, squat and ugly. "Right through that set of glass doors there and onwards until you get to the reception desk. I'm sure that they'll be very understanding."

"Thank you so much, sir. I really owe you. Is there anything I can do?"

"Nothing at all!" he assured me. "You're a good listener, and that's all old people ever really want. Best of luck in doing what you need to!"

I clambered out of the car and waved until he rounded the far corner. A smile still sort of on my face, I turned, walked up the path, and pushed in through the glass doors. I made my way down a long, narrow taupe hallway that wound up opening into a large, modern-looking room with a large semicircular half-desk. An Arabic woman was sitting behind a computer, Bluetooth headphone in, typing rapidly into the keyboard. She didn't look up as I approached the desk.

"Um, excuse me."

She looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, um, I'm a citizen of the U.S., and I was abandoned in the airport. Is there any way that I can get home?"

She sighed, made a face, and rose, vanishing into a door behind the desk.

"Wait, m'am, come back!"

Her head reappeared, and she snapped something in a jibberish language. "ماذا؟?!" she spat.

I jumped. "No, I – I don't -Um, _parlate italiano_?"

She rolled her eyes, hissed, and stormed back through the door, clearly annoyed. My hands clenched on the desk. What was happening…?

"الذي يكون أنت?"

I whirled to face a door to my left. A boy about my age was standing there, thumbs hooked through the belt loops in his jeans, a white dress shirt messy and untucked. He, too, was Arabic, with dusky skin, black eyes, and blacker hair. He was raising an eyebrow at me, as though he expected an answer. I sighed, nearly going out of my mind.

"_Parlate italiano?_" I asked him, frustrated. No one spoke English, no one spoke Italian; what was I supposed to do? What kind of U.S. Embassy was this?

He looked confused, and I laughed softly, sinking to the ground, leaning against the desk. "Welcome to my world," I told him in English, certain he wouldn't understand.

"Oh, you're _American!_"

I jumped up as he addressed me in slightly accented English, excited that someone could finally understand. "You speak English! Oh, _grazie Dio_, thank God! I need to get home!"

He raised an eyebrow. "That seems like a personal problem."

I sighed. "No, I mean, I came to the embassy so that I could get home."

The confused look was back. "You live in Egypt?"

My face fell. "Egypt?" I echoed, disbelief coloring my voice.

"Egypt," he said slowly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "This is the _Egyptian_ embassy."

I moaned and just let myself collapse. I buried my face in my hands and tried not to cry. _I suppose it was too much to hope that my luck would be good for once_.

I heard the boy walk over and sit beside me. I peered through my fingers to find him sitting with his legs crossed, staring at me with interested black eyes. "Where were you supposed to end up?"

"Greece," I grunted, too frustrated to care about good impressions, shyness, or anything else right now.

"Greece," he stated flatly. "So you're an American kid in an Egyptian embassy who wants to get home to…Greece."

I let my head slam back against the counter. It didn't feel good, but some part of me felt better. "No," I said. "I'm an American kid who took a flight here and was supposed to catch a flight to Greece, but his friends left him and an old guy offered to take him to the U.S. Embassy but he brought him to the Egyptian one instead."

"Nice one," offered the boy. He extended his hand. "Sudi Massri. And you are…?"

"Prospero Bianchi. Prop," I said, taking his hand and shaking it. I curled my legs up to my chest, feeling the swords bound to my thighs pressing tight against the skin. I sighed. "Don't freak out, okay?"

"About wh – you're taking off your pants. Why are you taking off your pants?"

I fought down the blush that was fighting its way into my cheeks and ripped the swords off of my thighs before yanking my pants back up. I tightened the exterior thigh holsters, and then I laid the swords on the ground and curled back up into my fetal ball again. Sudi stared at me, then at the knives on the ground, then at me again. "It's a long story," I muttered.

He sighed cynically, picking up one of the knives. "It always is," he said, pulling it out of its sheath. A surprised look flashed across his face, followed closely by a suspicious one.

"Where did you get these?" he asked me.

"A friend," I replied. "From summer camp back home."

"How did you get them through airport security?" he asked, the suspicion still clear on his dark-skinned face.

"I'm freaking Harry Potter," I mumbled, burying my face in my knees.

"Yeah, okay, and I'm Aladdin. Bullcrap," he said, toying with the kukri. "Do you know what these are?"

"Sharp knives, is my guess."

"You're a genius. No, I mean what they're made of."

Why not. I had nothing else to lose. "Aiden told me they were made of celestial bronze, the metal of the gods."

The sword dropped from his hand with a clunk. I looked at him to see his face intense, his eyes bright with focus. _I've seen those eyes before_, I thought, but the memory was lost when Sudi spoke.

"You know about the gods." He smiled suddenly, brightly, grabbing onto my shoulders. "You know about the gods!"

"The Greek gods, yes, what is your deal?" I asked, pulling my shoulders away. I was tired, I was abandoned, I had no money, no food, no clothes besides the ones I wore, no way home, and a psychotic kid was shaking me. I'd had a long day.

His smile faltered. "The _Greek_ gods? They're – they're _real_?"

"…_yes_," I said, confused. "Wait. Which – which gods are _you_ talking about?"

"The Egyptian gods, of course," he said. Oh, _of course_.

"Wow," I breathed. "How – how do you know about the gods?"

He reached into the shirt and pulled out a leather cord. On the end of it, a little bird was dangling. It was small but intricately carved; the bird had a little head with a long, curved beak. I blinked. "That – that bird. What is it?"

"The symbol of Thoth," he said. "The ibis."

"You're a son of Thoth?" I asked him, eyes wide. He nodded, tucking the carving back into his shirt.

"Are you one too? A son of a god, I mean?"

"My mom is a goddess," I explained, somewhat hesitant. He was so proud of his parentage. "Nike."

"Like the shoes?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nike means victory in Greek," I told him. He grinned, his black eyes sparkling.

"Wow, the goddess of victory. Can I put you on my basketball team?"

I groaned. "No."

"But – "

"No."

"Fine, then," he said, rolling his eyes. "So, Prop, son of Nike, why are you heading to Greece? Ancestral questions?"

"Quest," I said miserably. "But the people I was with ditched me because I'm bad luck. Yes, I _know_ my mom's the goddess of victory, yes, I _know_ that I should be good, I'm not. I'm just not. I don't know why."

He was quiet for a while after that. "What's going to happen in Greece? Are you stealing golden apples or something? A fleece? Something gold."

I sighed. "Not quite. More averting-the-apocalypse stuff, I think, than gold. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there's no gold involved."

He waved a hand dismissively. "There's _always_ gold involved. What kind of apocalypse? Zombie? Nuclear kaboom?"

"From what little I do know," I grimaced, "I'm pretty sure it's more of a vortex of doom and despair and enslavement of all mankind."

"Oh. Well, that's no fun." He sighed, drawing patterns absently in the carpet. Suddenly, he brightened. "We can use the jet!"

"…beg pardon?"

He stood, attempting to drag me with him. "The jet, the embassy jet! Come _on_ Prospero Son-of-Victory Bianca – "

"_Bianchi_ – "

" – move!" he finished, finally pulling me to my feet. We stumbled backwards, righting ourselves before we fell, and he sighed. "That was spectacular. Anyway, my mom's the Egyptian ambassador to London, and the embassy has a jet! This qualifies as enough of an emergency to use it."

"Like they're going to let us use a jet!" I scoffed, digging in my heels as he attempted to pull me down the hallway. "I'm an optimist, but that's just verging on stupidity! 'Oh, hey, borrowing a pilot and jet to zoom over to Greece and save the world from a malicious ancient evil, be back for tea, ta-ta!' It's not going to go over well!"

He rolled his eyes. "So we _lie_, retard. Allah, but you're stupid."

"I resent that. Also, I thought that Islam was mono – ow, that hurts! Monotheistic. That means with _one_ god, right?"

"Right. _Move_, damn you! And it is. Urk! You're heavier than you look."

"Please put me down."

"No. And I don't truly follow Islam, I'm just listed as a Muslim in the census."

"Well goody for you and your census. I like the ground, please return me to it."

"No. Do you not understand? From what I know, it's the same in English and Italian. Oof! Doors hurt." We were outside now, and from my vantage point I could see the doors closing behind us as Sudi continued walking, me thrown over his shoulder.

"I'm heavy. Doesn't this hurt?"

"Fireman's throw. Sort of painful, yeah, but you're not going any _other_ way, and I'm not too fond of the apocalypse, so – monster."

"What? _Ow!_" I landed on the concrete with a thud, and Sudi dropped the two kukri into my lap. I looked up to see a strange looking creature crouched not more than ten feet away on the sidewalk.

"Please tell me you can use those," Sudi hissed.

"Yeah, right," I spat back, slowly rising to my feet, eyes never leaving the monster. "You're the son of the god of wisdom, _you_ figure something out!"

"Little short on tools to improvise with, genius!"

"Shut up and think, _shut up and think_!"

"Fine! Ugh!"

Gulping, I slid the kukri out of their sheaths and gripped them in my sweaty palms. I made sure that they were like Aiden had showed me, just in case.

"That is an Egyptian monster," Sudi said quietly. "Didn't think it was real, thought the historians were wrong. My bad."

"What is it?!"

"It's, um. A female leopard with the head and neck of an asp."

"An asp?"

"Poisonous snake. Deadly snake. Go on, Prop, go be a hero."

"You suck!" I hissed, my breath shaky. The thing had risen to its feet, and sure enough, the head of a snake unfurled and rose into the air. The claws on the body extended out of the paws, and I was fighting to breathe from terror. The tufted tail swung back and forth, and I'd seen enough mice killed and eaten by a cat to figure out what that meant.

Sure enough, it lunged, the snake's mouth open wide, fangs glistening with poison. _If these are my last seconds here_, I thought, _let's make them good_. I closed my eyes and swung out blindly, wildly, with the kukri, windmilling my arms in every direction. I felt a thud against the blade, followed by a soft _whup _and a gentle hiss. I stabbed and jabbed and spun frantically, positive that Sudi was dead, that it was coming for me.

"Calm down, you spaz!" snapped Sudi. I froze, my eyes flying open. There was a small pile of dust on the ground about a foot away, and a little bit further than that lay the severed head of a snake, mouth still open, fangs still bared. Sudi was rising from the ground, brushing dirt from his clothes and glaring. "You almost took my head off," he growled.

"Yeah, but it's dead," I said, unable to help myself as I slid into giggles with a distinctly hysterical edge. "I killed it! It's dead."

"Congratulations, have a cookie or something. What do we do with the head?" he asked, picking up a twig and poking at it dubiously.

"I have no idea, and I don't care!" I shouted gleefully, cackling. "That can be _your_ problem, because _I killed a monster!_"

Sudi rolled his eyes, but I ignored him, laughing and spinning about happily.

"Will you _please_ put those things away before you kill _me,_ oh fearsome accidental-monster-slayer?" he deadpanned, glaring at me. I took a few steadying breaths and nodded, a goofy smile still on my face. I sheathed the kukri and slipped them into the uncomfortable thigh-holster that Chiron had assured me I'd need.

If this was what victory felt like, I wanted more of it. I reached down to pick up the head of the snake. "I guess it's a trophy," I said, turning it over in my hands.

"Careful," Sudi warned. "The fangs are still poisonous, I think."

I sat, pulled off my tennis shoe, and yanked off my sock. Toeing the shoe back on, I did the same to the other foot, and then wrapped the head in both of the socks. I stuck it in my pocket and stood. "Do you have any money?" I asked Sudi, my stomach growling. "I'm hungry."

"Ugh," Sudi moaned, sending me a small smile to let me know he was teasing. "Are all heroes this dependant?"

"Considering that I'm not a _hero_," I said, smiling, "I don't really know. Now come on. I feel like Chinese."

"No, we're getting Indian."

"Japanese?"

"French."

"Italian?"

"German."

"English?"

"English."

Together we walked down the sidewalk, talking about various food and its merits, and it occurred to me that maybe Sudi would really help me get to Greece. Maybe I could catch up to the others and prove that I wasn't such a useless jinx after all.

_Ow!_ I winced as something sharp broke the skin through my shirt. I froze where I was, hoping against hope that it hadn't been what I thought it was. I looked down and sure enough, a shiny white fang was protruding through the pocket of my hoodie and into the skin at my hip.

"Hey, Sudi? Can we go to a hospital first?"

* * *

A/N

So...um...nother update. Say hi to Sudi, guys!

Um, rough translations: Arabic is, first, "What?" and then "Who are you?". Italian is mostly Prop saying that he's an idiot, and asking if people speak Italian. :D


	5. Chapter 5

**The Eye of Gods**

_by: dnrl_

Chapter Five: A Certain Shade of Green

* * *

The streetlights were coming on above us as I shoveled another mouthful of fried rice into my mouth, blinking at Sudi when he raised an eyebrow at me. "Whar?" I asked. I swallowed and tried again. "What?"

He rolled his eyes. "American pig. No manners."

"Oh please, like the way you ate that pizza was any better. _Plus_ you wiped your fingers on my shirt after."

He waved a hand, dismissing my protests. "Also, the amount of MSG in that synthetic, cheap Chinese food – it can't be good for you."

I sighed, eating another mouthful. "That's what _makes_ it good, Sudi."

"Whatever you say, Prop." He pushed himself up off the bench, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. "You coming or what?"

"I'm not even finished yet," I complained, rising.

"So eat while we walk. Unless multitasking is too much for your brain to compute?" he teased, smirking.

"I _am_ on painkillers," I reminded him. "…I thought I wasn't supposed to leave the hospital until these were out of my system. Why did we leave again, Sudi?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Gods, maybe we should have stayed in the hospital, I think your dosage was too large. Like I told you twice before this: we left because one of the nurses was a monster. She was eyeing you. You were zoned out. So I dragged your ass down the fire stairs. And now I'm feeding you, because you wouldn't shut up about your stomach and I figured, hey, the kid deserves some cheap Chinese food if he wants it." He narrowed his eyes. "Although getting bitten was kind of your fault. You shouldn't have put it in your pocket."

"…did you ever notice that it feels _weird_ when you're wearing shoes with no socks? Like, I'm wiggling my toes, and it's all weird, because I have no socks, and I usually _do_ have socks."

"Oh, eff em el."

"…huh?"

"That is the American saying, right? Standing for fu – "

"_Yes_. Yes. It is. Um. Pretty sure you shouldn't be saying that out loud. There's a preschool class like three feet to our left. Hello, small people!"

Sudi sighed and steered me away from the kids, who were staring up at me in confusion. One opened his mouth to speak, and Sudi snapped, "If your mother didn't ever teach you not to talk to strangers, I will: _don't talk to strangers_."

"Hey, be nice, he looks like he's about to cry," I observed. Sudi groaned and began muttering what I suspected was a prayer in Arabic. "Why are my hands tingly? And my fingers are _huge_, like _whoa_!"

He blinked at me hands. "…you're having an allergic reaction to the antibiotics. Are you _serious_."

"Yes."

"_Not a question_." He grimaced and glared at nothing in particular. I'd kind of learned that that was his thinking face. Finally, he sighed and grabbed my arm. "This way." He yanked me sideways down a small alley between buildings that led into the parallel street. "The embassy's plane is housed in a small warehouse on airport grounds that's connected to the runway. I called the pilot while you were in the emergency room. He'll meet us there in…" Here he yanked my wrist up to look at my watch. "…five minutes. Taxi! _Taxi!_ Yes, you, you bloody retard, get the hell over here! No, no, don't – oh for the love of…"

"My tongue is tingly too!" I announced excitedly. "Is that good?"

Sudi looked at me. "You'd be surprised at how much self-control it takes to keep from killing you," he informed me in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Probably," I replied. Or tried to. It came out more like, "Pwahbahbree." Still, he seemed to understand. Or he didn't care. I wasn't quite sure which. I was more focused on the fact that the sky was turning a lovely shade of orange. "My chest hurts." Well. "Mah chess huhs."

"What?" he asked, eyebrows furrowed as he turned to me. The last look I saw on his face was one of sudden worry. Then my vision blurred and I staggered to the side. "Prop!" I felt his hands under my arms, lifting me up. "Crap – help! Please, is there a doctor? Anywhere? Somebody call an ambulance!" I heard an increasing murmur of worried voices around me before an insanely familiar voice drove through the haze.

"Yes, yes, I'm a doctor. Stand aside, here, let me see him."

_Why was that voice familiar_?

"Ha, my boy, you are very lucky."

"What is it?" Sudi asked. He was, at this point, a black blur against a blurry orange background that I assumed was the sky.

"Simple allergy to ibuprofen. I assume he's had an anti-inflammatory painkiller earlier today?"

"Yes, he had treatment for a snake bite. What – what is that?"

"Never fear, my boy, simply a syringe of epinephrine."

_My boy_.

"It's glowing _gold_," said Sudi, skeptic attitude clear in his voice. I felt his hand tense around my arm. "Hey, no, I don't want you to – _hey!_"

I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my arm for a moment, and then sensation like fire through my veins, racing up my arm and into the rest of my body. Black spots danced in from of my eyes for less than a second, and when they cleared I could see again. My tongue wasn't swollen anymore, nor were my hands tingling. An middle-aged, portly man was leaning over me and smiling happily. "There, you see? No harm done to your friend." He gave Sudi a reproachful glance. "And there was no need for harm to be done to _me_, either, little Egyptian."

I reached up and grabbed the doctor's arm. "I _know_ your voice," I said. "I _know _it."

He blinked owlishly from behind thick-framed glasses. "Do you _really_?" he asked, smiling crookedly. "How odd."

And then he was gone, and Sudi and I were sitting in the back of a taxi.

Sudi's head snapped to and fro, his mouth stammering with no sound emerging. When he finally managed to get control of his vocal chords, he could only seem to produce short bursts of words – "Wha – wh – ho – I – no – bu – Prop!" he wailed, turning to me and clutching at my arm. "What just happened?!"

"I think we met a god," I managed. "I think that he's also the same man that brought me to the Egyptian embassy. They had the same eyes."

"A god," he said flatly. "A _god_ just walked up to us, jabbed a needle into you, and teleported us into the back of a taxi."

"Yes."

"…well _damn_," he finished, sliding back bonelessly into his seat.

"We're in a bit over our heads here, I think," I sighed, running my hands through my hair.

"What clued you in? The existence of two mythological pantheons, the monstrous creatures trying to kill us, or the impending doom of the end of the world as it exists?" Sudi deadpanned, rolling his eyes. "We're up a creek without a boat."

"Paddle," I corrected absently. "The expression is 'up a creek without a paddle.'"

"I _know_ what the expression is, and I know what I wanted to say. Not only are we up a creek without a paddle, we're up the creek and we don't even have a freaking _boat_."

I sighed and conceded the point.

* * *

"We _do_ have a jet," I pointed out when we arrived at the hangar. It was a small thing, streamlined to smoothness, and it looked like something out of a high-tech sci-fi movie. "Are you sure this is for an ambassador? It looks like something out of…Transformers, or something."

"Positive. I flew in it to get here. It has a minibar," he grinned. He turned to the pilot, a blonde-haired man with dark brown eyes and a nose far too large for his face. "_Andre! Hé, l'homme, ce qui est vers le haut?_"

The man smiled. "_Rien intéressant, Monsieur Massri, juste l'habituel._"

"_Excellent! Ainsi nous pouvons obtenir cette chose en Grèce aujourd'hui, bien_?" Sudi asked.

"…what's going on?" I whispered. Sudi shushed me with a glance.

"_Ah, le plus certainement. Le besoin juste de faire un puits rapide s'arrêter, et moi pouvons vous avoir là avant déjeuner demain_." The pilot was smiling politely. Sudi wasn't exactly returning the expression.

"_Un arrêt de mine? Vous n'avez pas mentionné un arrêt de mine."_ Sudi sounded concerned, frowning and folding his arms over his chest. Andre hasted to reassure him of whatever it was.

"_Non, non, rien principal! Nous devons juste sélectionner quelque chose vers le haut en Allemagne pour votre mère."_

Sudi's dark eyes widened slightly and his jaw tightened. I tensed. _"Ma mère? Lui avez-vous dit que vous preniez le voyager en jet?_"

Andre looked surprised. "_Non. Elle a demandé ceci tôt ce matin avant que vous ayez appelé avec les arrangements qu'elle a pris."_

Sudi smiled widely. "_Merci beaucoup, André. Nous embarquerons maintenant_."

"_Oui, monsieur!_" Andre stepped away rapidly, and Sudi shoved me towards the jet stairs.

"Go, go, go!" he hissed. We made a mad dash up the stairs and into the jet, where we collapsed onto the nice leather seats.

"_What_ was that all about? I mean, I got the gist of _some_ stuff, but…"

Sudi waved a hand. "The first bit was just chitchat, but then he told me that we should be in Greece before breakfast tomorrow morning, and that's including a stop off in Germany."

"Germany? Why Germany?"

"He needs to pick up something for my mother," Sudi replied, kicking the mini fridge open and grabbing a tangerine. "That was why I was worried. I lied and told him that my mother was sending me and a friend back to Egypt so that I could attend the rest of my extra tutoring. If she had told him something that contradicted that – like the fact that I'm grounded – it would've been bad."

"You're really good at lying," I told him, frowning. He laughed and then saw the look on my face.

"Oh, come _on_, Prop, don't be such a naïve little princess. Lying," he said, popping a tangerine slice into his mouth, "is a necessary part of life. Adults lie to children all the time, teaching children that it's okay to lie when _you _think that it's right, which means that, as adults, _those_ children will lie to _their_ children in turn. It's a vicious cycle, but that's what you have."

"My father didn't lie to me," I sighed. "There goes your theory."

"Did you have Santa Claus?" he asked me, eyebrow raised.

"Yes," I said. "Telling kids that he's real doesn't count as a lie. It's _Santa_."

"And you see? You're justifying the _lie_ that was told to you by an _adult_ – by the adult culture, actually – because you think that it's for the benefit of yourself and others. And so when you have a bouncing baby boy of your very own to cuddle and screw up, you'll lie to _him_ about Santa, because you think it's right, because that's how you were raised." He bit into another slice. "Cycle."

I frowned at him. "You're making it very hard for me to have faith in humanity."

"Just doing my job, sir."

"You're a cynical person, aren't you?"

He snorted. "I'd say that I prefer to think of myself as a realist, but…yes, I'm probably more cynical and pessimistic than realistic. Really, I think that life's more fun this way."

"How on earth do you see that?" I asked.

"'Cause if you always think things are going to be bad and then they _are_ you're not disappointed – and if you think things are going to be bad and they're wonderful, well. You get to have a pleasant surprise. No-lose scenario."

I sighed. "I still prefer being an optimist."

"What, you _like_ getting let down by people every ten seconds? There are far more bad occasions than good ones."

"That depends on your point of view, doesn't it?"

"I swear, if you pull the glass-half-full stuff on me, I'm leaving."

"…why are you here, anyway?"

"_Excuse me_?" Sudi asked. I rushed to explain.

"Not that you're not amazing to have around and useful and smart and fun to talk to and whatnot," I stammered in the face of his abating anger. "But I'm just some random kid who showed up at your embassy talking about America and the Greek gods. Even if you _are_ an Egyptian half blood, why believe me? Or why even come on the quest with me? Or help me out by giving me a ride on a _jet_? You just met me. It's not logical."

"Why thank you for your analysis, Mr. Spock." Sudi tossed the tangerine rind and picked out a bowl of cold red grapes. He popped one in his mouth before continuing. "Look. I don't exactly have the _best_ home life, in case you missed out on that memo. My mom didn't want me, but she bargained with Thoth for a career raise. She would bear him a child if he would give her the knowledge she needed to climb the rungs of the business world. That's all I was to her – a business transaction." He brought the ibis out and toyed with the chain. "I – I've always been a problem kid, and not only with my learning disabilities. I act out, cause trouble, because the only time my mom bothers with me is when she's disciplining. It's stupid, I know – she doesn't even love me, so why should I want her to notice me?"

"I didn't say that," I said softly. He ignored me and went on.

"I break things – mostly other kids' faces when they made fun of me. I got into fights, my grades dropped lower than ever, I came home one day with a broken nose, an arm fracture, and a shin splint, and she didn't even care anymore. Hired a 'disciplinary nanny' to help me sort out my issues because she couldn't be bothered. Then I realized that I'd screwed myself over, because – why the hell am I telling you this? Anyway," he said, shaking his head as if at his own foolishness, "I came with you because life in London is hellish for me, because you're something new and exciting, and because I'm…rebelling for something that I want to rebel for. I want to act out _for_ something, not just because I want attention." He shrugged. "I think I overthink things."

"Little bit," I joked, and the mood was broken. He threw a grape at me, I threw it back, and we progressed into a grape war. Still, I couldn't forget his words – or the utterly lost, totally abandoned look on his face when he said them.

* * *

"Did you know that one in five thousand Atlantic lobsters are born blue?" Sudi asked me about half an hour into our hour and forty-five minute trip to Germany.

"No." I ate another Twix bar. "Hmm. Did you know…did you know that after you die your hair keeps growing for about two months?"

"Yes. Yes I did." He smirked at me. "You're going to eat all the Twix. Do you not know _anything_?"

"School was never my strong point and I didn't really read or watch TV," I grumbled. "Plus the TV that I _did_ watch wasn't anything that would have anything remotely factual and realistic in it."

Sudi had declared himself bored about ten minutes after we'd taken off, and had begun a spin-off of the drinking game "Have You Ever." We would each throw out random facts, and if the other person didn't know the information they had to eat a Twix bar. Sudi had eaten five. I had eaten eleven.

"But you _know_ random facts," he pointed out logically, taking a deep pull on his Coke. "Hm, let's see. Did you know that the earliest form of contraceptive was crocodile dung, and that it was discovered in Egypt?"

"Yes!" I said, excited that I wouldn't have to eat another Twix bar. Don't get me wrong, I like Twix well enough, but eleven in quick succession is a bit much. I sighed when Sudi shot me a skeptical look. "It was on an episode of this reality show my aunt was watching last week. Shut up. Um…did you know that dentists recommend keeping a toothbrush a minimum of six feet from a toilet so that you don't get bacteria from the flush on your toothbrush?"

"Oh, ew. No, I didn't, and I was happy not knowing." He crammed a Twix down and I cackled.

"Well, _I_ was happy not knowing that the average person eats fourteen bugs a year while they're asleep, but you didn't care about _that_, did you?"

"Okay, _okay_, fine. My turn?"

"Yeah."

"Did you know – what the hell?!"

The plane began to tip wildly, and Sudi crashed out of his seat. I clung to my armrests and managed to extend my leg to him. He grabbed it and I hauled him up, straining and struggling as he wriggled towards the seat. He pulled himself into the seat next to me and quickly began fumbling for his seatbelt. I followed his example.

"Andre!" he shouted furiously. "What the hell? _Que se passe-t-il?!_"

The overhead crackled to life and spouted a garbled stream of steady French in what sounded scarily like an tone of fear. "_Je ne sais pas, monsieur, je suis à une perte totale. Les commandes agissent vers le haut, et je ne sais pas quoi faire! Monsieur, rien répond comme il faudrait! Il est comme si quelque chose casse mes instruments!_"

"What's going on?" I cried impatiently. Sudi's face was pale.

"Something's messing with the plane's instruments, and nothing that Andre's trying is working. He says that it's like nothing he's ever seen before. You don't think that one of the gods would do this, do you?"

"One of them was _helping_ us, why would they crash our plane?" A note of panic crept into my voice as our oxygen masks popped down from the ceiling. "Oh god – I mean gods – or Zeus – or _whatever_, Sudi, I don't know how to use these!" The plane lolled down and then curled back up higher than before, and I fought back nausea.

"There is a _monster_ on the _wing of the plane!_" he screeched, pushing back against my seat frantically, pointing. I gaped at the bizarre combination of bird and woman hanging from the wing of our plane. Her hair was blowing back in the moonlight, huge wings stretched out behind her, gigantic talons digging great big gouges in the metal wing of the plane. "And she's not _wearing _a _shirt_. My eyes are _burning_, dear _lord_, I think I need to gouge them out."

I hit him. "She's messing the plane up!"

"No sh – "

"Figure out something!" I hissed, flapping my arms at him uselessly. "All I know how to do is close my eyes and swing at things, do something, it's _your turn_!"

"We're taking _turns_?"

"_I don't know_, just get the thing away!"

"What _is_ it?"

"It's not Egyptian?"

"No! No, the Egyptians usually have animal heads and _she's getting closer_ and is that a nipple ring?"

"_Why are you looking?!_ Look, okay, it's a Greek bird-woman, I don't know what it's called or what it does but – "

"Harp! Harp! Greek bird women! Harps!"

"A harp is a musical instrument and _oh my god she is trying to break the window._"

"A harpu, then? I don't know!"

"A _harpy_?"

"Yes, that! That! How do I beat it?"

"I don't know! Stab it or something?"

"Helpful! _The glass is cracking!_"

An inhuman shake rang out, rattling the seatbelts and the three panes of hardened bullet proof glass in the windows. Sudi and I both covered our ears as the woman-bird – the harpy – struck out again and again with her taloned foot. There were deep grooves in the outermost pane of glass, and I shivered.

Sudi unbuckled and threw himself towards the cockpit, crawling the rest of the way. "If I don't come back," he said, "it's been real." He pushed himself to the side, and it was then that I realized what he was planning to do. Levers thunked, a wheel squeaked as it turned, and there was a hiss of decompression.

"No!" I cried, fumbling with my seatbelt. A sudden rush of air filled the plane. Twix and their wrappers flew everywhere, Coke cans slamming into things, paper tearing from various surfaces, my hoodie flying somewhere to the back of the jet. I heard a _thump _and turned to see Sudi clutching to the wing of the plane, eyes safe behind goggles, clinging to the side he was precariously dangling over. He was about ten feet from the harpy and the turbine. The monster looked thrilled to see him, rushing directly over. I yanked desperately at my seatbelt. "Come on, _come on_!" I got the seatbelt undone and the oxygen mask slammed into my face. I shoved it on, prayed it worked, and fought my way against the air current to the doorway.

I slammed against the wall and clutched at the door, seizing on a pair of goggles still clinging to a hook in the wall. "Sudi!" I screamed, but my voice was lost in the howl of air. He and the harpy were struggling, staggering - well,_ he_ was. She had dug in her talons and was shrieking in glee as she lunged for him. Things slowed to an infinitely slow speed. As if in slow motion, I watched Sudi's feet slide out from under him, watched him catch himself on the wing, and saw him swing, with amazing dexterity, straight into the harpy's neck, catching it dead center with his foot. The monster plummeted away, twirling in a spiral towards the earth, and Sudi collapsed on the wing.

The plane jerked for a brief moment, and then I was being pressed up against the wall as Andre leaned out of the door. He screamed something in French and threw a rope and harness to Sudi. I snatched up the rope on the ground behind him and began to pull when he did. Together, we hauled the idiotic Egyptian back onto the plane. As soon as the door closed, Andre was back in the cockpit and at the controls, rechecking everything. I dragged Sudi back to the seats and, as quickly as I could, put the oxygen mask around his mouth.

Slowly, his shallow breathing began to deepen, the bag inflating and deflating at a slower, steadier rate than before. I breathed out a sigh of relief and threw off my own mask and goggles. I removed Sudi's eyeware and found his black eyes staring, half-open, up at me.

"You're an idiot," I told him. His eyes were asking a question. "You got her," I assured him. "You won."

His body relaxed at those words, smiling beneath the mask, eyes fluttering closed. We sat like that for about half an hour, just taking deep breaths and enjoying the silence before he spoke up. His voice was hoarse and more accented than usual.

"Did you know," he rasped, "that the outer skin of a plane is only five milimeters thick? And only about seven inches are between the passengers and," he coughed, "the outside. Also, the black box is orange."

I sighed. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure I'll hit you if you ask a question that stupid again."

I couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, you're sure you're okay."

"Damn straight."

* * *

We spent the remaining fifty minutes of the flight alternately sleeping, talking about monsters, and berating each other for either monumental stupidity or idiotic overprotectiveness. He really didn't seem bothered on the surface by the fact that he would've died if Andre hadn't been there to help, but I knew that he was. He was being cocky and pessimistic just like he was before, but there was a quiet change in his brashness. And me? Well.

If Andre hadn't been in the plane, he would've died. I wouldn't have been able to help him, and I would've had to stand and watch as the closest thing I had to a friend ran out of strength and oxygen, collapsed, and flew off the wing of a plane to his death. Feeling that helpless – I didn't like it when it happened before, and I wasn't any fonder of it now. I _had_ to become stronger, better, smarter…anything that I needed to become to make sure that people that were my friends didn't get hurt.

And Sudi was my friend. I'd known him for less than a day, but there was something about him that was so like me that it hurt. Even with his pessimism and off sense of humor and stupid bouts of courage, there was something that reminded me of _me_ in him, and that made me not so afraid to let him be my friend. I would risk my life for him – and, I realized with a jolt, he already _had_ risked his life for me. And no matter how many times he said it was to save his own skin, he and I _both_ knew the truth – he had held himself together enough to make a plan because I was depending on him.

When he depended on me – when he needed _me_ when there was a monster getting ready to attack – would I be able to hold _my_self together?

Or would I fail my only friend?

His hand squeezed my shoulder as he sat straight up and looked at the grooves in the window. "I can see the lights in Berlin," he said. "We should be about ten minutes from landing." He shot me a grin. "Maybe we can get some German food while we're here."

_I trust you_, he said. _You won't_, he said.

I wasn't so sure.

But I'd try.

* * *

A/N

Lame ending is laaaame. But oh well. It's one o'clock in the morning and I am _tired_, but dammit, I'm late enough with my updates. That is because the cooking bug bit me, and I've spent the last two days baking and cooking things like homemade coconut cake, cheesecake, peach cobbler, chicken and okra gumbo, and some sort of Mexican dish that I can't remember. :D

ANYWAY. I know that this chapter is pathetic and whatnot, but hey, it was fun to write, and good exercise. Concrit appreciated, reviews appreciated, flames...appreciated, I guess. I mean, some feedback is better than none. ;)

And I wanted to mention last time, but I forgot...the chapter titles have _nothing_ to do with the chapters. They're the song that is playing when I finish my writing. Chapter one was _Come Rain or Come Shine_ by Judy Garland, two was _I'll Believe in Anything_ by Wolf Parade, three was _Play with Fire_ by Cobra Verde, four was _Oil and Water_ by Incubus, and this one is _A Certain Shade of Green_, also by Incubus.

Next chapter leads to the introduction of Ada, which means that it will be longer than others, like Prop's was. When introducing new characters, I tend to kind of...go overboard. :D Hopefully will have that up in the next day or so, but weekend is family time, so no promises. Lots of time to write during the week, though, so _definitely_ an update by Monday afternoon, at the latest. :)

Happy reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**The Eye of Gods**

_by: dnrl

* * *

_

Chapter Six: Autumn Lullaby

* * *

"I'm an _idiot_."

I glanced over at Sudi, who was draped over the hard park bench opposite mine. He had a hand thrown across his face, the other toying with a piece of gravel from the path. "No you're not."

"Yes, I _am_." He sighed and rolled onto his side to face me. "I've been thinking about the plane thing. I'm an idiot."

"You won," I pointed out.

"Yes, and you won that fight against the other monster, but it didn't stop you from being a spaz," he deadpanned. "Anyway, I've been working some figures in my head. Let's consider that for the average Boeing 747, which is considerably larger than the plane that we were flying, top speed usually hits about two hundred and forty miles per hour."

"Does it?"

He rolled his eyes. "We're not considering facts, we're considering a scenario. Keep up. Yes. It does. I weigh about…hmm. We already halfway American with the calculations, so in pounds I weigh about one hundred and sixty. So a one hundred and sixty pound boy is thrown – throws himself, _whichever_ – out of a plane going, as I have said, two hundred and forty miles per hour with nothing protective save a pair of goggles. At this point, the terminal gravity is exerting a force on the boy of about ten meters per second squared, which means that the odds are astronomically low that the boy will reach his target. However, due to, let's say, a fluke in which the jet stream from the airliner assists in the length of his jump, a miracle occurs and the boy hits the wing of the airliner – where, upon standing up, he is buffeted by winds of _about two hundred and forty miles per hour_. Technically, this one hundred and sixty pound boy should be _blown off of the streamlined surface_ of the jet wing. But not only did he _remain_ – he also managed to successfully kill something and then live to be rescued and managed to survive the low oxygen content that naturally comes with the higher atmosphere. I think we just had a _deus ex machina_."

"A what?" I asked, still rather stunned from the calculations running through Sudi's head.

"Look, by all rights I should have either been overshot by the jetstream and died or I should have avoided the jetstream and _still_ died. If, by some miracle, that didn't happen, the oxygen content in the air couldn't have been enough at that altitude to keep me alive for five minutes if I was perfectly still. As it was, it kept me alive for _eight_ minutes as I clung, slid, and fought a creature from myths. The rope that Andre threw me shouldn't have been able to reach me – according to the laws of physics, it should have gotten caught in the force from the turbine engine. And _two people_ aren't enough to counteract a two hundred and forty mile gust of constant wind. Something was helping us."

"Was it the same god from before?" I wondered, biting at my thumbnail as I thought. "He doesn't seem like he would, though…"

"He's a _god_," Sudi sighed irritably. "Who knows _what_ he would do?"

"Point," I conceded.

"Still," he said, shifting restlessly on the bench, "it's good to know we've got someone on our side."

"Yeah, really." I slumped down on the bench, shoving my hands in the pocket of my hoodie. There was a light drizzle that came and went, the moon dodging in and out of the light rainclouds. I squinted up at the sky, trying to guess whether or not more wetness was on its way. "What time do we have to be back at the hangar?"

He looked at his watch. "Andre said fifteen minutes, but it's not like he'll just up and leave without us."

"With my luck," I laughed, "I wouldn't doubt it." He made a strange noise in his throat and I looked over to see his eyebrows digging down into his eyes as he squinted at my bench – or something just below it. I pulled my feet up hurriedly, curling them into my chest and wiggling around until I could see through the planks. There was something…odd-shaped in the darkness beneath the wood. "Sudi…what is it?"

He let out a sudden laugh, pushing himself up and off of his bench. "You speak any German?"

"What? No, why?"

"Because I only speak a little, and I'm pretty bad at it. Um…_Ich sage hallo zum Hund Ihr Mutter_," he said, his voice lilting up in a questioning sound at the end. "I'm _pretty_ sure I just said 'hello, there.'"

"It sounded like you said 'mother,'" I told him, growing agitated. "What is it you're talking to?"

There was a sudden flurry of movement, and a pink ball of wool threw itself straight at a crouching Sudi, knocking him onto the ground. In the time it took me to get on my feet, it – she, I supposed – had straddled Sudi's chest and was beating at his face with fat toddler fists, yelling frantically in German. She was young – three, maybe – and all wrapped up in pink wool and little white bobbles. Little brown corkscrew curls were peeking out from under a little pink hat, and ferocious, scared blue eyes glared at Sudi.

"_Ich sage Anfang! Ich sage Anfang!_" Sudi cried. "I'm telling her to stop, she's not listening! _Prop_!" he wailed. I gently lifted the little girl from behind and plopped her on the bench, avoiding her wildly swinging arms and legs. She clambered onto her feet on the bench, pressing herself against the back beams and trembling slightly, her face a mask of terrified three-year-old defiance. "_Es ist gut. Wir verletzten Sie nicht morgens._"

She glared at Sudi suspiciously, and I began rifling through the pockets in my jeans and my hoodie.

"What are you doing?" he asked me.

"She's a little kid!" I said.

"Well, _yeah_."

I let out a sigh, which was quickly followed by a cry of triumph. "Ah-_ha_!" I trumpeted, waving my sought-after prize in the air. I tore open a corner and offered it to the little girl, who was beginning to look marginally less frightened. "Chocolate," I said. She took it in her pudgy little fist and began gnawing on the corner. She paused for a moment to give me a megawatt smile before returning to the candy bar, content and appeased for now.

"Is _that_ what you're supposed to do with children?" Sudi asked, wonder in his voice. "I could never figure it out. You just give them sugar and they're all right?"

I huffed. "No. You're not really supposed to, but it keeps them quiet until they finish what they're eating. She'll probably take a while. What are we supposed to do with her?"

"Leave her where we found her. Like finding a wallet on the ground."

"You're supposed to turn the wallet into a police station."

"Then let's bring her to a policeman!"

The little girl's curly head snapped up. "_Polizist_?" she said, suspicion ringing clear in her voice.

"_Ja der nette Polizist. Wir holen ihn Ihnen und bilden_ safe." He turned to me. "How do you say 'safe' in German?"

"I don't know, and I don't like the look on her face," I said. It was hard and cold and she was clutching the chocolate bar with white knuckles. The German began pouring out of her faster than Spanish from a Latina soap opera starlet, the world _polizist_ being said several times in quick succession, accompanied by _nein_s, which I was fairly sure meant "no."

"Apparently she doesn't like the police."

"Apparently," agreed Sudi. "_Nein, nein. _I wonder why."

"E-e-e-excuse m-m-me." As one, Sudi and I snapped around to find the source of the noise. It turned out to be a tiny teenaged girl, a little younger than me. She had a halo of thick, fuzzy copper curls around her head, wire glasses on the bridge of her nose, and a pair of jeans and a lumpy sweater that were both far too large for her. There was a book held in one hand and the other was curled into a fist. She was biting her lip. "I-I-I was lo-lo-looking for h-h-her. She's m-m-my little sister at th-th-the orphanage. She g-g-got lost. M-m-my apologies for d-d-d-disturbing you." Her words were clear, but heavily coated under a German accent. She made a little bow at us and darted forward, bird-like, to grab the girl's hand. "_Für Grund der Güte, _Eliza_, erklärte ich Ihnen, gesetzt zu bleiben! Schauen Sie jetzt, was Sie gegangen und getan haben_!"

"_Eins von ihnen ist nett! Er. Er gab mir Schokolade._" The last word sounded like "chocolate," a little bit, and she was pointing at me, so I figured she was telling the new girl about my gift.

"_Ich interessiere nicht mich für Schokolade! Sie erinnern sich an letztes Mal!_" the elder lectured. The younger visibly deflated, curls sagging a bit.

"_Monster_…" agreed the little girl, nodding.

"Hey, we're not monsters!" I broke in. "We kill monsters!"

Sudi shot me a glare, and it took me a minute to realize that these were mortals – clueless mortals, who were probably talking about pedophiles or boogeymen or the closet monster as opposed to giant lion-snakes and topless winged women. I bit my lip.

"You k-k-k-kill them?" the second girl forced out.

The younger gave a sudden hard tug on the sleeve of the arm holding the book. The novel tumbled to the ground, and I bent to pick it up. Behind me, Sudi snorted.

"Of _course_ you're _chivalrous_…"

"Shut up," I told him, fighting a blush. "H-here," I offered, holding the book out to her. She snatched it back, a scowl forming on her face.

"S-s-s-top m-m-making fun of m-m-m-my st-st-st – problem." She glowered, nostrils flaring, looking the very picture of terrified, defensive fury. I quickly held up my hands in the universal "no harm" gesture.

"I'm n-not making fun," I said, fighting to subdue my own stammer. "I-I stammer, too."

"It's sort of endearing, after a while," Sudi drawled from where he sat crosslegged on the ground. He seemed to be having a staring contest with the little girl, who was pouting and staring back intensely. "Really, I didn't think it would be at first, but it's quite grown on me. _Dammit!_" The younger girl smirked, stuck her tongue out at Sudi, and scurried behind the older girl's legs.

"Eliza," sighed the elder girl. "_Anschlag."_

"That word!" Sudi suddenly exclaimed, turning to look at the older girl so quickly _I_ got whiplash. "What does that word mean?!"

"St-st-stop," replied the startled girl, looking as nonplussed as I felt.

"I thought that that was _anfang_," he said, frowning in puzzlement.

The girl let out something close to a laugh. "That m-m-m-means 'begin,'" she said, a tiny smile picking up the corners of her mouth before she adopted a somewhat defensive expression again.

"…_double dammit_," he hissed. "So _that_ was why she wouldn't stop…"

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Look, sorry about all of this. Um, i-it's okay that I gave her the chocolate, right?" _Be strong, Prop. No more stammering. You killed a weird Egyptian thing. You're supposed to be a hero. No. More. Stammering._

"Y-yes, ch-chocolate is f-f-fine. _Danke_," she said. "Um, a-a-are you and your fr-fr-friend lost?"

"Oh, n-no…" I blushed. _No more stammering!_ "We're just waiting for our plane."

She blinked and took a subtle look around her. "Th-this is a park."

Sudi sighed as he clambered up from the path, brushing dirt of the back of his jeans. "What the idiot here means is that we're waiting until a certain time so we can go back to the airport, get on our jet, and fly away. Only we have no idea where the airport is."

"_What_?" I asked, rounding on him. "How do we not know?!"

He gave me a devil-may-care grin. "I didn't look where we were going."

"_Sudi_! You had _better_ be kidding!"

"Hey, I was distracted."

"You were _singing_."

"And thus distracted."

"Come _on_!"

"E-e-excuse me," cut in the girl. The smaller one was peering around her legs, thumb in mouth, staring at us with big baby blues. "I m-may know t-t-the way to t-t-the airport."

"Excellent. Let's go."

She blinked. "I…I need to t-t-take Eliza back."

"Sure," I said. Sudi opened his mouth to speak and I glared. "No. You do not have speaking rights. You got us into this mess, _she_ is going to get us out, and _you_ have nothing more to say." I turned back to the older girl and Eliza, and I tried for a winning smile. I think I did okay. "So, um, you're taking her back to the…orphanage?"

The older girl nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but Sudi beat her to it.

"Well," he drawled, "can we get a name first? I mean, I could keep calling you Large and Fuzzy Sweater girl, but it's rather long and it tires my brain." I glared.

"_That's_ why you're not allowed to speak."

"Ada," the girl interrupted. "M-my name is Ada Ingraham. Th-this is E-Eliza Fath."

"Ada," I said, smiling. "Nice to m-meet you." _Stop stammering!_ "And you, Eliza. I'm Prop, and this is Sudi."

She beamed up at me with toddler-glee, dashing over to clutch onto my jeans. She nuzzled her face into my leg and giggled. She looked up at me with large blue eyes. "_Herauf_?" she asked. I looked to Ada.

"Up," she translated. "Sh-she wants to b-b-be held." A dull red flush rose in her cheeks, and I felt like giving her a hug. She had to be trying harder than I was to hold back her stammer. Instead, I reached down and swooped the toddler off of her feet.

"Oof! Heavy," I grunted, settling her around until she found a comfortable spot on my hip. "All set?"

She cuddled herself into the side of my neck, and a chubby fist reached out to grab the front of my hoodie. I took that as German-toddler-speak for "yes." He looked up to find Sudi giving him a deadpan stare and Ada smiling into the collar of her sweater. "Let's go," he muttered, blushing furiously.

"Th-the orphanage is close to the airp-p-port," Ada said, motioning us forward. We walked a few steps behind her, and Sudi, of course, argued.

"Well then, why not just take us to the airport first and _then_ you and the munchkin can go to the orphanage?" he asked. Well. Demanded was more like it. "Seriously, you'd be making the trip twice as long for yourself." He continued on in this vein until we reached a dimly lit street, crowded with cars and people who looked at the ground as they bustled along. Really friendly. Ada sighed.

"F-f-fine!" she relented. "W-we'll go to the airp-port first."

"You don't have to," I assured her, as I had multiple times in our walk thus far. We took a left turn and began to walk farther away from the town. "We can do whatever's best for you."

She scuffed at the ground with what I thought were combat boots as she walked. "N-n-no, Sudi is right." She stumbled a bit over the pronunciation, but righted herself. "It is m-m-more logical to simply g-g-go to the airp-port first."

Eliza, who had been quiet up until now, made a noise of discontent and squirmed. "Down?" I asked, looking to Ada, who shook her head.

"She's s-s-sleepy and scared," she answered. "Y-Y-You can't put her d-down, she'll c-cry, and if you d-don't sing, she'll c-cry. D-d-do you sing?"

"Not well," I replied, flushing.

"I don't do singing. Unless I'm in the shower, or trying to make ears bleed," offered Sudi. "Or just annoying you."

"Don't doubt it," I replied. "Ada? Do you?"

She bit her lip and shook her head so quickly she was a blur for a moment. I sighed and shifted Eliza so she sat closer against me. "Does she know the normal lullabies?"

"She w-w-won't know them in En-En-English. She'll g-g-get the t-t-tune, though."

I took a deep breath, held her a bit tighter, and began to sing, utterly embarrassed but totally unwilling to be holding a crying baby. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…you make me happy when skies are grey…you'll never know, dear, how much I love you, so please don't take my sunshine away."

It continued on that way, through "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "Rock-a-bye-baby," "Hush Little Baby," and ended on a repeat of "You Are My Sunshine" as we finally rounded the street to the airport. We were about halfway there when Eliza, who had been sleeping soundly, suddenly bolted awake. I almost dropped her. She was panicked, crying, reaching out to Ada.

"Ada! Ada_! Sie kommen! Sie kommen! Monster! Monster!_"

Sudi and I stared while Ada snatched Eliza up. "_Wo? Wo sind sie_?"

Eliza pointed to the airport viciously. "_Dort! Dieses Gebäude! Die grosse!_" Ada paled and clutched Eliza to her chest.

"M-m-m-monsters!" Ada said, stammer increasing as she panicked. "M-m-m-m-monsters in the a-a-airport! You c-c-can't go!"

"She can _sense_ them?" asked Sudi, dumbfounded. "How?"

"It doesn't matter," I said. "Is she reliable?"

Ada nodded ferociously, Eliza bawling into her shirt. "Sh-sh-she says that th-th-th-they are l-l-l-large."

"Prop, we _need_ to be on that plane. We don't have any money or any other way to get to Greece," Sudi pressed.

"Like you said, Andre's not going to leave us, we should hang back and make a plan to – "

I was interrupted as the airport exploded.

We were thrown to the ground in the shock; pieces of flaming metal rained down around us as we ran across the road and into the shallow thicket across from the large airfield. The control tower was burning, the main building in flames; the planes were still exploding across the tarmac, one fire setting off an explosion in the next plane, and that plane catching the next, like a series of deadly dominoes. Sudi danced about frantically brushing flames and ash off of his jacket, and Eliza and Ada cowered. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the airport and the burning chaos.

I was the only one of the four of us to see the giant figure rising from the center of the flame. It looked like a snake, sort of, long and scaly, but with wings and claws and gigantic teeth that could rip the head off of Godzilla. As if that wasn't enough, it reared its head back and let loose a long turret of fire into the sky. "Is that a dragon?" I breathed, my voice barely more than a whisper. Sudi and Ada both looked up in a horrifying mix of awe and sheer terror.

"It's a drakon," Ada said, and her voice was clear of her stammer, smooth as glass. "A creature from Greek mythology; most likely a drakon thespiakos, slain by the hero Menestratus; like the Nemean lion, vulnerable in the mouth and eyes." Sudi and I gaped for a moment, and she bit her lip. "I-I-I have a photographic m-m-memory," she stammered, "and I l-l-like mythol-l-logy."

"Fine by me," Sudi sighed, turning back to the drakon. "At least _someone_ knows what the hell this even is."

"We have to kill it," I said, resisting the urge to just fall to my knees and give up. "It – It'll kill people, won't it? That thing?"

"Y-y-yes. It's already k-k-killed the p-people in there. It w-won't stop until it's de-dead." She cradled Eliza gently, rocking the little pink puffball of a toddler back and forth, trying to stop the tears pouring down the chubby face.

"So we have to kill it." I felt sick.

"I didn't sign up for this," Sudi blurted, and he sounded as ill as I felt at that moment. "I – I can't fight invincible flame-breathing dragons or whatever that thing is. It just blew up an _airport_, I think we're out of our league."

"We've been out of our league since this started," I choked out around the tightening in my throat. "I guess this means I'll die in a literal blaze of glory."

"Or a blaze of _idiocy_," Sudi snapped. "I, for one, never wanted to die by dragon."

"It's f-f-f-flying!" Ada suddenly hissed. "Get down! Get d-d-down!" She dragged us flat to the ground, our noses in the dirt.

"You German psycho!" groaned Sudi, squirming. "It can't see us!"

"_It can smell you_," she said, deadly serious. "How d-d-do you t-t-think it found the airp-p-port? I know what y-y-you are, I've kn-n-n-nown kids like you, not-normal k-k-kids, who got taken away b-b-by people in suits because they s-s-saw things and f-f-fought things. I wanted t-to go, wanted to get t-taken away, but Mr. Haufmann said that I w-w-wasn't one of them. You _are_. It _knows_. So g-get _down_, and maybe the earth will c-cover your scent."

Sudi blinked at her, and Eliza reached out and grabbed my hand with pudgy fingers. She held on tight, and I squeezed right back. _Be brave for her_, I thought. _Do you want a little girl to die_?

"We have to get up, Ada," I said, taking deep breaths. "W-we have to fight it. _I_ have to," I added, seeing Sudi's disbelieving look. "You don't have to. It's not your quest or whatever. But there are _gods_, apparently, and my dad used to tell me that everything happens for a reason. Maybe _this_ is why I'm here. To save these people. And I – I can't take the chance that that's _not_ the reason." _And I have to be strong_. _I have to make my mother love me. To make her proud of me._ I swallowed hard. "When I say go, run fast back the way we came, towards town. It's over in the air field, exploding the planes – I'll go for it. Get to as safe a place as you can." I pulled away from the ground and Ada, sliding my fingers away from Eliza. "Now, go!"

"Prop – " cried Sudi, but I ignored him. I took off as fast as my legs would take me back across the road. The chain-link and barbed-wire fence was gone, torn away in one of the quakes that had ripped through the earth as the drakon slammed into the ground in the air field. It loomed ahead of me, bright and illuminated in fire. It breathed out a stream of flames and a line of three or four jets combusted, the force knocking me back a few steps. The ground shook, and metal flew out from the jets. A tiny piece caught my cheek, tearing the skin. I winced and tried to ignore the gush of warm blood against my skin.

I kept going forward, stupidly running towards my death. I yanked the kukri ungracefully out of their sheaths, barely remembering to hold them the right way. As I drew closer, I could feel the heat radiating off of the scales. _What have I gotten myself into_? My brain was screaming curses at me, my stomach was having convulsions, and I was sweaty and trembling, but I couldn't stop running forward, I couldn't get the image of little Eliza out of my head, and I…I wanted my mom to _notice_ me. To be _proud_ of me, her loser son. Dying in a suicidal fight against a drakon wasn't much of a way to go, but it was a way I was going to take, because if there was the _slightest_ chance that I could save the people in that town, it was worth my life. It was, and it sort of shocked me that _that_ was a bigger cause of my actions than gaining my mother's love.

I was almost on the drakon now, and its ferocious head was sweeping from side to side, nostrils flaring and belching smoke. It let out a shriek like metal on metal and rose into the air, swerving and diving down straight for me, jaws wide, flames and cruel, wickedly sharp teeth gleaming, coming for me. I braced my blades out in front of me and closed my eyes. _Please, let this at least hurt it_, I prayed, not sure who I was praying to. I was sweating from the heat, shaking, burning up –

A force collided with me from the side, knocking the wind out of me and rolling me about twenty meters away from where the drakon's jaws snapped shut on empty earth. I shoved myself up and whirled to face my attacker – and I was confronted with a disheveled and ashy Sudi, pushing himself up from the ground with a determined look on his face. "Dammit," he growled, "I don't leave my friends behind. Look out!" He snatched my arms and yanked me behind a fragment of wall, just in time to escape a wall of flames. "Listen, Ada told me everything she knows about drakons before we split – she and Eliza are headed back into the city, she knows a place where they should be safe. She said that it's vulnerable in the mouth, especially, and to avoid the eyes unless you were amazing at archery, because if you're off even a hair, all you'll do it annoy it."

"And that's exactly what we need," I panted.

"Exactly. So basically the outside is as strong as a nun's chastity belt – "

"What the _hell_?"

"I watch American television, so sue me! Anyway, it's _strong_, is the point, but the inside is like the chastity belt of a cheap prostit– "

"I don't know what shows you watch but you need to _stop_, seriously!" I hissed. "And please, for the love of god, or gods, figure out _something_ to do! You're a son of Wisdom, do something…wisdom-y!"

"Wisdom-y? Seriously?" he asked, eyebrows threatening to disappear. The drakon gave a loud roar and another burst of flame burst past the wall. A few charred stone pieces crumbled onto our heads, and it stomped around a bit. "Wisdom-y. Working on it."

"Good. Work fast."

"What the hell, you need to put in effort too!"

"_Sudi_!"

"Okay, okay! Um, materials, materials, we have _knives_, we have _flaming hunks of metal_, we have my _sexiness_, we have…_more flaming hunks of metal_, we have…_jet fuel tank, score!_" he cheered. He nudged me and pointed to where a large barrel of something – apparently jet fuel – lay, untouched by the fire for the moment. "Dear god, another miracle, thank someone. It should've exploded by now. Careful when you touch it, it might kaboom."

"_I'm_ touching it?"

"Hey, _I_ thought of the plan, now it's _your_ problem, okay?"

"God, fine. What do I need to do?"

"Just be your normal demigod-smelling-self. Go stand next to the jet fuel barrel and make a lot of noise. It'll come at you with the roar-ing and the fire-ing and the teeth-ing going on, and then you wait until it gets close enough, then _run like the wind_."

"When is close enough?" I asked as a roar echoed behind us that shook the ground. I tried not to wet myself in sheer terror at the thought that I was about to totally antagonize the source of that sound.

"Um, okay, the standard open-air burning point of jet fuel is about four hundred fifty nine degrees, but the autoignition point is considerably less, more like four hundred and ten. Either way, um, it's gonna get really hot, really fast, and you need to pull out _as soon as you can_. Like, when you know that that dragon drako whatever isn't going to pull out of the dive, go. Okay?"

I didn't answer; I just took off towards the barrel, waving my arms frantically and screaming until I went hoarse, jumping to and fro as I ran.

"You look like a jackass!" Sudi yelled at me, but I didn't really care; adrenaline was flooding my system, my nerves hyper-aware; as I turned back, I could see the drakon rising in a cloud of fire and smoke, rising up and then spiraling downwards with all the deadly grace of a crashing airplane. I gulped and ran faster until I was next to the barrel. I skirted it, mindful of explosion on contact, and looked up to see the drakon about five floors above me and closing fast. I winced, legs tight and ready to dash – it could still pull away, could still see me run, but it was getting awfully hot – and as it closed, I leaned sideways and took off in a sprint. I was halfway back to the wall when I heard a scream.

"_ELIZA!_"

I skidded backwards, eyes wide in horror as I spun. Everything was going in slow motion, some kind of horrific scene – Ada was splayed out on the ground behind a far-away shelter, and Eliza was running towards me, and the gas tank and the diving drakon were between us. I didn't even stop to think; I turned back, almost sliding in the dry dirt, and took off towards the barrel. I was vaguely aware of Sudi and Ada screaming, loud and high and terrified, but I was too focused on the little red face, wet with tears and sweat, streaked with grime, and the little hands reaching out to mine. I ran faster and harder than I ever had in my life before, praying harder than I could even imagine – _oh please, let me win, let me win this race, I can't lose, oh please, Mother, please_ –

I passed through a wave of heat, like opening an oven door, and then I was past the barrel. I scooped up Eliza in my arms and dashed for the nearest cover, farther than the wall had been; Ada was kneeling beside it, arms open, face terrified, and I watched her expression contort into something worse as there was a shock impact against the ground – and then my world exploded on itself.

When I came to, I was trapped under a pile of rubble. I worked it off, rubbing away my aches as I sat up, my head spinning. The world was bleary for a few minutes before it righted itself. The ground looked as though it was a bomb testing site – I guess it sort of was. There was no sign of life from the far-off wall where Ada had been, and the wall where Sudi had been was collapsed. It had only been a few minutes; the dust was still floating down from the drakon's death, and the sky was still dark. A few fires still crackled merrily, and I realized that I didn't hear anything. No groaning, no cries for help, no pleadings – the drakon had killed everyone at the airport. Everyone.

Everyone – _Eliza_, I thought, and the breath rushed out of my lungs in a giant woosh. She wasn't in my arms, wasn't safe, wasn't –

My eyes caught on a scrap of pink hanging from the larger rubble heap about a yard away. Staggering to my feet, I fell to my knees again and began yanking at the rubble like a man possessed. I felt the stone tear at my fingers, felt my nails catching on edges, but I didn't care, because she could still be there, could still be alive – I could hear something faint, stirring, and I pulled away a boulder and there she was.

Her curls were covered in dust from the rocks, and her eyes were barely open. Her face was red with blood from a cut on her forehead, and her little forearm was at an odd angle, but she was alright otherwise. She looked up at me, squinting, and managed, of all things, a tiny little smile. "_Schokolade,_" she said. Chocolate. "_Mein freund_." My friend. Her friend. I smiled and pressed a kiss to the hand I could reach. She winced. "Ow-wie," she announced.

"I know, baby, I know. Ow-wie. You'll be okay. We'll get you – oh, god."

I had finally pulled away enough of the rubble, and it wasn't her arm that hurt her most. A larger part of the building had collapsed in on her little legs, pinning them down. Blood was beginning to soak the bottom of her pink jacket.

"Ow-wie," she said again, softer. Her eyes were beginning to dim, and I fought to hold back tears.

"It's okay, it's okay, we'll get you safe, get you fixed, get you a doctor, it's okay." I kept saying it softly as I rocked back and forth, holding her hand as she squeezed my fingers. I petted her hair. "It's okay."

"Lullaby," she said, and her voice drew out the "u" as "oo," soft and sweet. This time tears did manage to escape, hot like fire across my cheeks.

"Okay, Eliza. Okay. Um. I – I…"

I didn't know what to sing, or what to say. This little girl, who I'd known for all of an hour, if that, was lying here dying a painful death because of me, because I'd been stupid enough to go after a drakon. Sure, my motives were noble, you know, one death saving the many, but…that had been when the death was _mine_. It was completely different when somebody _else_ suffered in my place – I would trade with her in an instant, because that death was _mine_, not hers. She was supposed to live because I died, I was supposed to save her and the other children and people and animals in the city over the horizon. I was supposed to save her.

Instead, I got her killed.

I lost.

"Lullaby," she insisted again, fainter than before. "Lullaby, _Schokolade,_ lullaby." Chocolate. That was my name to her, Chocolate. I swallowed down the bitterness and sadness in my throat and sung a song my father had sung to me when I was tiny and sleepy and just wanted to slip away.

"The sun has gone from the shining skies, bye, baby, bye. The dandelions have closed their eyes, bye, baby, bye. The stars are lighting their lamps to see, if babes and squirrels and birds and bees, are sound asleep as babes should be, bye, baby, bye…Bye, baby, bye…bye, baby…"

Her little hand was loose and getting cold in mine, and all I could do was curl up around it and cry. I felt a gentle hand on my back, and Sudi was pulling me into a warm, ashy hug, rocking me back and forth and muttering, "It's okay, Prop, it's okay. It's not your fault, it's okay."

"It's okay," I choked. "I told her that, I told her it would be okay."

Ada was there, sitting next to me, and I pulled her into the hug, and she hugged back tightly, trembling and crying silently into my shirt. We just sat there, covered in ash and dirt and grime, in a tight ball of sorrow and loss, next to the body of a little girl who never really understood. And the tune ran round and round again in my head…

_Bye, baby, bye._

_Bye, baby, bye._

_Bye, baby…_

_Bye…

* * *

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A/N

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_Yeaaah_.

I had to re-write this chapter about seven-eight times, not even kidding. It was really annoying, because it just refused to be portrayed correctly. -sigh- And there's a whole lot less of Ada, and horrible action, and y'know? I really am not that fond of it, but like _hell_ am I re-writing it again, so here you are. -dead- Still sick, but going to Chicago tomorrow, and we leave at about 6:30 a.m. and come back sometime Sunday evening, so...no interwebz and no replies until then, unless you catch me before 6:30. :)

Hopefully I didn't make this chapter too horrible. -fingers crossed-


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